3051 
E9 
1887 
MAIN 


fttoerstoe  literature  Series 


OF  FOREST 
EES  AND  WILD  APPLES 


BY 


HENRY  D.  THOREAU 


7ITH  A   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

BY 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

4  Park  Street ;  New  York :  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 
Chicago  :  28  Lakeside  Building 

(3TlJe  Ritoers'ibe 


2Dt)e  Htoeretoe  literature  Series 


THE   SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST 
TREES  AND  WILD  APPLES 


BY 


HENRY  D.  THOREAU 


WITH  A   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 


BY 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

Boiton :  4  Park  Street ;  New  York :  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 
Chicago :  28  Lakeside  Building 

(Cfc  lltocrsifce  threes, 


Copyright,  1863, 
Bv  TICKNOR   &   FIELDS. 

Copyright,  1887, 
BY  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

Ail  rights  reserved. 
pllt  .*±<\ 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,   U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


PREFACE. 


THE  biographical  sketch  by  Emerson  which  pre 
cedes  the  two  papers  by  Thoreau,  here  printed,  has 
this  advantage  over  most  biographies,  that  it  helps 
one  to  understand  the  real  man,  and  does  not  shut 
up  the  reader's  interest  in  a  knowledge  of  the  mere 
circumstances  of  Thoreau' s  life.  It  is  like  a  portrait 
which  carries  the  eye  straight  to  the  character  of  the 
man  portrayed,  and  does  not  arrest  it  at  the  dress  or 
decorations.  Indeed,  Emerson  was  so  impressed  by 
the  life  and  character  of  Thoreau  that  he  forgot  to 
mention  the  fact  of  his  death.  Thoreau  died  May  6, 
1862.  The  only  full  narrative  of  his  life  is  to  be 
found  in  the  volume  Henry  D.  Thoreau,  contributed 
jy  his  friend  and  fellow-townsman,  F.  B.  Sanborn,  to 
lfte  series  of  American  Men  of  Letters. 

Thoreau's  own  writings,  however,  furnish  a  still 
fuller  account  of  his  observations  and  thoughts.  The 
first  to  appear  was  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and 
Merrimac  Rivers,  published  in  1849.  It  was  a  nar 
rative  of  the  adventure  which  he  and  his  brother 
enjoyed  ten  years  before,  shortly  after  he  graduated 
from  college,  when  in  a  boat  of  their  own  making 


iv  PREFACE. 

they  followed  the  Concord  River  to  where  it  ente 
the  Merrimac,  then  went  up  that  river  to  its  sourc  , 
and  finally  back  to  the  starting-place  at  Concor< 
lii  1845  he  built  a  hut  in  the  woods  by  Walde.i 
Pond,  where  he  lived  for  two  years,  watching  th 
life  in  woods  and  pond  and  air.  Walden9  published 
in  1854,  is  his  most  famous  book,  and  contains  the 
record  of  his  experience  as  a  hermit.  These  two 
books  were  the  only  ones  by  Thoreau  published  in  his 
lifetime,  but  he  contributed  occasionally  to  periodi 
cals,  and  he  kept  full  journals.  After  his  death  his 
printed  papers  were  gathered,  and  his  journals  drawn 
from  to  make  Excursions  in  Field  and  Forest,  The 
Maine  Woods,  Cape  God,  Letters  to  Various  Per 
sons,  A  Yankee  in  Canada,  Early  Spring  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  Summer.  The  two  papers  which  fol 
low,  as  well  as  Emerson's  sketch,  are  from  the  volume 
of  Excursions. 


> 


V* 

„    /»•<  v-^rifs     r  ;  ,  ?s. 

t  ^  -*  v 

<  V  • »  *  i    *  *{    \ 

CONTENTS. 


-    BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  THOREAU   BY  RALPH  WALDO  EM 

ERSON         .                                                 ......  '             •,.•; 

THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES       .....  33 

WILD  APPLES. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  APPLE  TREE          .        .        .        -53 

THE  WILD  APPLE  ........  62 

THE,  CRAB     ..........  64 

How  THE  WILD  APPLE  GROWS      .....  65 

THE  FRUIT,  AND  ITS  FLAVOR     ......  ^° 

THEIR  BEAUTY         ........  ^6 

THE  NAMING  OF  THEM       .......  ^ 

KQ 

THE  LAST  GLEANING       ....... 


THE  "FROZEN-THAWED"  APPLE       .....     81 


<<: 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  THOREAU 

BY  RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  was  the  last  male  de 
scendant  of  a  French  ancestor  who  came  to  this  coun 
try  from  the  Isle  of  Guernsey.  His  character  exhibited 
occasional  traits  drawn  from  this  blood,  in  singular 
combination  with  a  very  strong  Saxon  genius. 

He  was  born  in  Concord,  Massachusetts,  on  theJL2th 
ofjJuly,  1817.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College 
in  1837,  but  without  any  literary  distinction.  An  icon 
oclast  in  literature,  he  seldom  thanked  colleges  for 
their  service  to  him,  holding  them  in  small  esteem, 
whilst  yet  his  debt  to  them  was  important.  After 
leaving  the  University,  he  joined  his  brother  in  teach 
ing  a  private  school,  which  he  soon  renounced.  His 
father  was  a  manufacturer  of  lead-pencils,  and  Henry 
applied  himself  for  a  time  to  this  craft,  believing  he 
could  make  a  better  pencil  than  was  then  in  use.; 
After  completing  his  experiments,  he  exhibited  his 
work  to  chemists  and  artists  in  Boston,  and  having 
obtained  their  certificates  to  its  excellence  and  to  its 
equality  with  the  best  London  manufacture,  he  re 
turned  home  contented.  His  friends  congratulated 
him  that  he  had  now  opened  his  way  to  fortune, 
But  he  replied,  that  he  should  never  make  another 
pencil.  "  Why  should  I  ?  I  would  not  do  again 


8       BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF  THOREAU. 

what  I  have  done  once."  He  resumed  his  endless 
walks  and  miscellaneous  studies,  making  every  day 
some  new  acquaintance  with  Nature,  though  as  yet 
never  speaking  of  zoology  or  botany,  since,  though 
very  studious  of  natural  facts,  he  was  incurious  of 
technical  and  textual  science. 

At  this  time,  a  strong,  healthy  youth,  fresh  from 
college,  whilst  all  his  companions  were  choosing  their 
profession,  or  eager  to  begin  some  lucrative  employ 
ment,  it  was  inevitable  that  his  thoughts  should  be 
exercised  on  the  same  question,  and  it  required  rare 
decision  to  refuse  all  the  accustomed  paths,  and  keep 
his  solitary  freedom  at  the  cost  of  disappointing  the 
natural  expectations  of  his  family  and  friends  :  all 
the  more  difficult  that  he  had  a  perfect  probity,  was 
exact  in  securing  his  own  independence,*and  in  hold 
ing  every  man  to  the  like  duty.  But  Thoreau  never 
faltered.  He  was  a  born  protestant.  He  declined 
to  give  up  his  large  ambition  of  knowledge  and  action 
for  any  narrow  craft  or  profession,  aiming  at  a  much 
more  comprehensive  calling,  the  art  of  living  well. 
If  he  slighted  and  defined  the  opinions  of  others, 
it  was  only  that  he  was  more  intent  to  reconcile 
his  practice  with  his  own  belief.  Never  idle  or  self- 
indulgent,  he  preferred,  when  he  wanted  money,  earn 
ing  it  by  some  piece  of  manual  labor  agreeable  to  him, 
as  building  a  boat  or  a  fence,  planting,  grafting,  sur 
veying,  or  other  short  work,  to  any  long  engagements. 
With  his  hardy  habits  and  few  wants,  his  skill  in 
wood-craft,  and  his  powerful  arithmetic,  he  was  very 
competent  to  live  in  any  part  of  the  world.  It  would 
cost  him  less  time  to  supply  his  wants  than  another. 
He  was  therefore  secure  of  his  leisure. 

A  natural  skill  for  mensuration,  growing  out  of  his 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU.       9 

mathematical  knowledge,  and  his  habit  of  ascertaining 
the  measures  and  distances  of  objects  which  interested 
him,  the  size  of  trees,  the  depth  and  extent  of  ponds 
and  rivers,  the  height  of  mountains,  and  the  air-line 
distance  of  his  favorite  summits,  —  this,  and  his  inti 
mate  knowledge  of  the  territoiy  about  Concord,  made 
him  drift  into  the  profession  of  land-surveyor.  It  had 
the  advantage  for  him  that  it  led  him  continually  into 
new  and  secluded  grounds,  and  helped  his  studies  of 
Nature.  His  accuracy  and  skill  in  this  work  were 
readily  appreciated,  and  he  found  all  the  employment 
he  wanted. 

He  could  easily  solve  the  problems  of  the  surveyor, 
but  he  was  daily  beset  with  graver  questions,  which 
he  manfully  confronted.  He  interrogated  every  cus 
tom,  and  wished  to  settle  all  his  practice  on  an  ideal 
foundation.  He  was  a  protestant  a  Voutranw,  and 
few  lives  contain  so  many  renunciations.  He  was 
TSred  to  no  profession ;  he  never  married ;  he  lived 
alone  ;  he  never  went  to  church  ;  he  never  voted  ;  he 
refused  to  pay  a  tax  to  the  state  ;  he  ate  no  flesh,  he 
drank  no  wine,  he  never  knew  the  use  of  tobacco ; 
and,  though  a  naturalist,  he  used  neither  trap  nor  gun. 
He  chose  —  wisely,  no  doubt,  for  himself  —  to  be  the 
bachelor  of  thought  and  Nature.  He  had  no  talent 
for  wealth,  and  knew  how  to  be  poor  without  the  least 
hint  of  squalor  or  inelegance.  Perhaps  he  fell  into 
his  way  of  living  without  forecasting  it  much,  but  ap 
proved  it  with  later  wisdom.  "  I  am  often  reminded," 
he  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  that,  if  I  had  bestowed  on 
me  the  wealth  of  Croesus,  my  aims  must  be  still  the 
same  and  my  means  essentially  the  same."  He  had 
no  temptations  to  fight  against,  —  no  appetites,  no 
passions,  no  taste  for  elegant  trifles.  A  fine  house, 


10     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU. 

dress,  the  manners  and  talk  of  highly  cultivated  people 
were  all  thrown  away  on  him.  He  much  preferred 
a  good  Indian,  and  considered  these  refinements  as 
impediments  to  conversation,  wishing  to  meet  his 
companion  on  the  simplest  terms.  He  declined  invi 
tations  to  dinner-parties,  because  there  each  was  in 
every  one's  way,  and  he  could  not  meet  the  individ 
uals  to  any  purpose.  "  They  make  their  pride,"  he 
said,  "  in  making  their  dinner  cost  much  ;  I  make  my 
pride  in  making  my  dinner  cost  little."  When  asked 
at  table  what  dish  he  preferred,  he  answered,  "  The 
nearest."  He  did  not  like  the  taste  of  wine,  and 
never  had  a  vice  in  his  life.  He  said,  "  I  have  a 
faint  recollection  of  pleasure  derived  from  smoking 
dried  lily-stems  before  I  was  a  man.  I  had  com 
monly  a  supply  of  these.  I  have  never  smoked  any 
thing  more  noxious." 

He  chose  to  be  rich  by  making  his  wants  few,  and 
supplying  them  himself.  In  his  travels,  he  used  the 
railroad  only  to  get  over  so  much  country  as  was  un 
important  to  the  present  purpose,  walking  hundreds  of 
miles,  avoiding  taverns,  buying  a  lodging  in  farmers' 
and  fishermen's  houses,  as  cheaper  and  more  agree 
able  to  him,  and  because  there  he  could  better  find 
the  men  and  the  information  he  wanted. 

There  was  somewhat  military  in  his  nature,  not  to 
be  subdued,  always  manly  and  able,  but  rarely  tender, 
as  if  he  did  not  feel  himself  except  in  opposition.  He 
wanted  a  fallacy  to  expose,  a  blunder  to  pillory,  I  may 
say  required  a  little  sense  of  victory,  a  roll  of  the 
drum,  to  call  his  powers  into  full  exercise.  It  cost 
him  nothing  to  say  No  ;  indeed,  he  found  it  much 
easier  than  to  say  Yes.  It  seemed  as  if  his  first  in 
stinct  on  hearing  a  proposition  was  to  controvert  it, 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU.     11 

so  impatient  was  he  of  the  limitations  of  our  daily  / 
thought.  This  habit,  of  course,  is  a  little  chilling  to 
the  social  affections ;  and  though  the  companion 
would  in  the  end  acquit  him  of  any  malice  or  untruth, 
yet  it  mars  conversation.  Hence,  no  equal  com 
panion  stood  in  affectionate  relations  with  one  so  pure 
and  guileless.  "  I  love  Henry,"  said  one  of  his  friends, 
4Hbut  I  cannot  like  him ;  and  as  for  taking  his  arm,  I 
should  as  soon  think  of  taking  the  arm  of  an  elm-tree." 
Yet,  hermit  and  stoic  as  he  was,  he  was  really  fond 
of  sympathy,  and  threw  himself  heartily  and  childlike 
into  the  company  of  young  people  whom  he  loved,  and 
whom  he  delighted  to  entertain,  as  he  only  could,  with 
the  varied  and  endless  anecdotes  of  his  experiences  by 
field  and  river ;  and  he  was  always  ready  to  lead  a 
huckleberry  party  or  a  search  for  chestnuts  or  grapes. 
Talking,  one  day,  of  a  public  discourse,  Henry  re 
marked,  that  whatever  succeeded  with  the  audience 
was  bad.  I  said,  "Who  would  not  like  to  write  ' 
something  which  all  can  read,  like  '  Robinson  Cru 
soe  '  ?  and  who  does  not  see  with  regret  that  his  page 
is  not  solid  with  a  right  materialistic  treatment,  which 
delights  everybody  ?  "  Henry  objected,  of  course,  and 
vaunted  the  better  lectures  which  reached  only  a  few 
persons.  But,  at  supper,  a  young  girl,  understanding 
that  he  was  to  lecture  at  the  Lyceum,  sharply  asked 
him,  "  whether  his  lecture  would  be  a  nice,  interest 
ing  story,  such  as  she  wished  to  hear,  or  whether  it 
was  one  of  those  old  philosophical  things  that  she  did 
not  care  about."  Henry  turned  to  her,  and  bethought 
himself,  and,  I  saw,  was  trying  to  believe  that  he  had 
matter  that  might  fit  her  and  her  brother,  who  were 
to  sit  up  and  go  to  the  lecture,  if  it  was  a  good  one 
for  them. 


12     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH   OF  THOREAU. 

He  was  a  speaker  and  actor  of  the  truth,  born  such, 
and  was  ever  running  into  dramatic  situations  from 
this  cause.  In  any  circumstance,  it  interested  all  by 
standers  to  know  what  part  Henry  would  take,  and 
what  he  would  say ;  and  he  did  not  disappoint  expec 
tation,  but  used  an  original  judgment  on  each  emer 
gency.  In  ,1845  he  built  himself  a  small  framed 
house  on  the  shores  of  Walden  Pond,  and  lived  there 
two  years  alone,  a  life  of  labor  and  study.  This  ac 
tion  was  quite  native  and  fit  for  him.  No  one  who 
knew  him  would  tax  him  with  affectation.  He  was 

Jmore  unlike  his  neighbors  in  his  thought  than  in  his 
action.  As  soon  as  he  had  exhausted  the  advantages 
of  that  solitude,  he  abandoned  it.  In  1847,  not  ap 
proving  some  uses  to  which  the  public  expenditure 
was  applied,  he  refused  to  pay  his  town  tax,  and  was 
put  in  jail.  A  friend  paid  the  tax  for  him,  and  he 
was  released.  The  like  annoyance  was  threatened 
the  next  year.  But,  as  his  friends  paid  the  tax,  not 
withstanding  his  protest,  I  believe  he  ceased  to  resist. 
No  opposition  or  ridicule  had  any  weight  with  him. 
He  coldly  and  fully  stated  his  opinion  without  affect 
ing  to  believe  that  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  company. 
It  was  of  no  consequence  if  every  one  present  held 
the  opposite  opinion.  On  one  occasion  he  went  to 
the  University  Library  to  procure  some  books.  The 
librarian  refused  to  lend  them.  Mr.  Thoreau  re 
paired  to  the  president,  who  stated  to  him  the  rules 
and  usages  which  permitted  the  loan  of  books  to  resi 
dent  graduates,  to  clergymen  who  were  alumni,  and 
to  some  others  resident  within  a  circle  of  ten  miles' 
radius  from  the  college.  Mr.  Thoreau  explained  to 
the  president  that  the  railroad  had  destroyed  the  old 
scale  of  distances,  —  that  the  library  was  useless,  yes, 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH   OF   THOREAU.     13 

and  President  and  College  useless,  on  the  terras  of 
his  rules,  —  that  the  one  benefit  he  owed  to  the  Col 
lege  was  its  library,  —  that,  at  this  moment,  not  only 
his  want  of  books  was  imperative,  but  he  wanted  a 
larQ-e  number  of  books,  and  assured  him  that  he, 

o 

Thoreau,  and  not  the  librarian,  was  the  proper  custo 
dian  of  these.  In  short,  the  President  found  the  peti 
tioner  so  formidable,  and  the  rules  getting  to  look  so 
ridiculous,  that  he  ended  by  giving  him  a  privilege 
which  in  his  hands  proved  unlimited  thereafter. 

No  truer  American  existed  than  Thoreau.  His 
preference  of  his  country  and  condition  was  genuine 
and  his  aversation  from  English  and  European  man 
ners  and  tastes  almost  reached  contempt.  He  listened 
impatiently  to  news  or  bon  mots  gleaned  from  London 
circles ;  and  though  he  tried  to  be  civil,  these  anec 
dotes  fatigued  him.  The  men  were  all  imitating  each 
other,  and  on  a  small  mould.  Why  can  they  not  live 
as  far  apart  as  possible,  and  each  be  a  man  by  him 
self?  What  he  sought  was  the  most  energetic  na 
ture  ;  and  he  wished  to  go  to  Oregon,  not  to  London. 
"  In  every  part  of  Great  Britain,"  he  wrote  in  his 
diary,  "  are  discovered  traces  of  the  Romans,  their 
funereal  urns,  their  camps,  their  roads,  their  dwellings. 
But  New  England,  at  least,  is  not  based  on  any  Ro 
man  ruins.  We  have  not  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
our  houses  on  the  ashes  of  a  former  civilization." 

But,  idealist  as  he  was,  standing  for  abolition  of 
slavery,  abolition  of  tariffs,  almost  for  abolition  of 
government,  it  is  needless  to  say  he  found  himself 
not  only  unrepresented  in  actual  politics,  but  almost 
equally  opposed  to  every  class  of  reformers.  Yet  he 
paid  the  tribute  of  his  uniform  respect  to  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Party.  One  man,  whose  personal  acquaint* 


'  I  / 

"  A 

I/  v 


14     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF  THOREAU. 

ance  he  had  formed,  he  honored  with  exceptional  re 
gard.  Before  the  first  friendly  word  had  been  spoken 
for  Captain  John  Brown,  after  the  arrest,  he  sent  no 
tices  to  most  houses  in  Concord,  that  he  would  speak 
in  a  public  hall  on  the  condition  and  character  of 
John  Brown,  on  Sunday  evening,  and  invited  all  to 
come.  The  Republican  Committee,  the  Abolitionist 
Committee,  sent  him  word  that  it  was  premature  and 
not  advisable.  He  replied,  "  I  did  not  send  to  you 
for  advice,  but  to  announce  that  I  am  to  speak."  The 
hall  was  filled  at  an  early  hour  by  people  of  all  par 
ties,  and  his  earnest  eulogy  of  the  hero  was  heard  by 
all  respectfully,  by  many  with  a  sympathy  that  sur 
prised  themselves. 

It  was  said  of  Plotinus  that  he  was  ashamed  of  his 
body,  and  't  is  ver}r  likely  he  had  good  reason  for  it, 
—  that  his  body  was  a  bad  servant,  and  he  had  not 
skill  in  dealing  with  the  material  world,  as  happens 
often  to  men  of  abstract  intellect.  But  Mr.  Thoreau 
was  equipped  with  a  most  adapted  and  serviceable 
body.  He  was  of  short  stature,  firmly  built,  of  light 
complexion,  with  strong,  serious  blue  eyes,  and  a 
grave  aspect,  —  his  face  covered  in  the  late  years  with 
a  becoming  beard.  His  senses  were  acute,  his  frame 
well-knit  and  hardy,  his  hands  strong  and  skilful  in 
the  use  of  tools.  And  there  was  a  wonderful  fitness 
of  body  and  mind.  He  could  pace  sixteen  rods  more 
accurately  than  another  man  could  measure  them  with 
rod  and  chain.  He  could  find  his  path  in  the  woods 
at  night,  he  said,  better  by  his  feet  than  his  eyes. 
He  could  estimate  the  measure  of  a  tree  very  well  by 
his  eye ;  he  could  estimate  the  weight  of  a  calf  or  a 
pig,  like  a  dealer.  From  a  box  containing  a  bushel 
or  more  of  loose  pencils,  he  could  take  up  with  his 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF  THOREAU.     15 

hands  fast  enough  just  a  dozen  pencils  at  every  grasp. 
He  was  a  good  swimmer,  runner,  skater,  boatman, 
and  would  probably  outwalk  most  countrymen  in  a 
day's  journey.  And  the  relation  of  body  to  mind 
was  still  finer  than  we  have  indicated.  He  said  he  \ 
wanted  every  stride  his  legs  made.  The  length  of 
his  walk  uniformly  made  the  length  of  his  writing. 
If  shut  up  in  the  house,  he  did  not  write  at  all. 

He  had  a  strong  common  sense,  like  that  which 
Rose  Flammock,  the  weaver's  daughter,  in  Scott's 
romance,  commends  in  her  father,  as  resembling  a 
yardstick,  which,  whilst  it  measures  dowlas  and  dia 
per,  can  equally  well  measure  tapestry  and  cloth  of 
gold.  He  had  always  a  new  resource.  When  I  was 
planting  forest-trees,  and  had  procured  half  a  peck  of 
acorns,  he  said  that  only  a  small  portion  of  them 
would  be  sound,  and  proceeded  to  examine  them,  and 
select  the  sound  ones.  But  finding  this  took  time,  he 
said,  "  I  think,  if  you  put  them  all  into  water,  the 
good  ones  will  sink ;  "  which  experiment  we  tried 
with  success.  He  could  plan  a  garden,  or  a  house,  or 
a  barn  ;  would  have  been  competent  to  lead  a  "  Pacific 
Exploring  Expedition  "  ;  could  give  judicious  counsel 
in  the  gravest  private  or  public  affairs. 

He  lived  for  the  day,  not  cumbered  and  mortified ' 
by  his  memory.  If  he  brought  you  yesterday  a  new 
proposition,  he  would  bring  you  to-day  another  not 
less  revolutionary.  A  very  industrious  man,  and  set 
ting,  like  all  highly  organized  men,  a  high  value  on 
his  time,  he  seemed  the  only  man  of  leisure  in  town, 
always  ready  for  any  excursion  that  promised  well, 
or  for  conversation  prolonged  into  late  hours.  His 
trenchant  sense  was  never  stopped  by  his  rules  of 
daily  prudence,  but  was  always  up  to  the  new  occasion. 


16     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF  THOREAU. 

He  liked  and  used  the  simplest  food,  yet,  when  some 
one  urged  a  vegetable  diet,  Thoreau  thought  all  diets 
a  very  small  matter,  saying  that  "the  man  who 
shoots  the  buffalo  lives  better  than  the  man  who 
boards  at  the  Graham  House."  He  said,  —  "  You 
can  sleep  near  the  railroad,  and  never  be  disturbed  : 
Nature  knows  very  well  what  sounds  are  worth  at 
tending  to,  and  has  made  up  her  mind  not  to  hear 
the  railroad-whistle.  But  things  respect  the  devout 
mind,  and  a  mental  ecstasy  was  never  interrupted." 
He  noted  what  repeatedly  befell  him,  that,  after 
receiving  from  a  distance  a  rare  plant,  he  would 
presently  find  the  same  in  his  own  haunts.  And 
those  pieces  of  luck  which  happen  only  to  good  play 
ers  happened  to  him.  One  day,  walking  with  a 
stranger,  who  inquired  where  Indian  arrow-heads 
could  be  found,  he  replied,  "  Everywhere,"  and, 
stooping  forward,  picked  one  on  the  instant  from  the 
ground.  At  Mount  Washington,  in  Tuckerman's 
Ravine,  Thoreau  had  a  bad  fall,  and  sprained  his 
foot.  As  he  was  in  the  act  of  getting  up  from  his 
fall,  he  saw  for  the  first  time  the  leaves  of  the  Arnica 
mollis.1 

His  robust  common  sense,  armed  with  stout  hands, 
keen  perceptions,  and  strong  will,  cannot  yet  account 
for  the  superiority  which  shone  in  his  simple  and  hid 
den  life.  I  must  add  the  'cardinal  fact,  that  there 
was  an  excellent  wisdom  in  him,  proper  to  a  rare  class 
of  men,  which  showed  him  the  material  world  as  a 
means  and  symbol.  This  discovery,  which  sometimes 
yields  to  poets  a  certain  casual  and  interrupted  light, 
serving  for  the  ornament  of  their  writing,  was  in  him 

1  A  plant  with  healing  virtue,  found  in  the  mountains 
Hampshire  and  New  York,  and  also  about  Lake  Superior. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAD.     17 

an  unsleeping  insight;  and  whatever  faults  or  ob 
structions  of  temperament  might  cloud  it,  he  was  not 
disobedient  to  the  heavenly  vision.  In  his  youth,  he 
said,  one  day,  "  The  other  world  is  all  my  art :  my 
pencils  will  draw  no  other ;  my  jack-knife  will  cut 
nothing  else  ;  I  do  not  use  it  as  a  means."  This  was 
the  muse  and  genius  that  ruled  his  opinions,  conver 
sation,  studies,  work,  and  course  of  life.  This  made 
him  a  searching  judge  of  men.  At  first  glance  he 
measured  his  companion,  and,  though  insensible  to 
some  fine  traits  of  culture,  could  very  well  report  his 
weight  and  calibre.  And  this  made  the  impression 
of  genius  which  his  conversation  sometimes  gave. 

He  understood  the  matter  in  hand  at  a  glance,  and 
saw  the  limitations  and  poverty  of  those  he  talked 
with,  so  that  nothing  seemed  concealed  from  such  ter 
rible  eyes.  I  have  repeatedly  known  young  men  of 
sensibility  converted  in  a  moment  to  the  belief  that 
this  was  the  man  they  were  in  search  of,  the  man 
of  men,  who  could  tell  them  all  they  should  do.  His 
own  dealing  with  them  was  never  affectionate,  but 
superior,  didactic,  scorning  their  petty  ways,  —  very 
slowly  conceding,  or  not  conceding  at  all,  the  prom 
ise  of  his  society  at  their  houses,  or  even  at  his 
own.  "  Would  he  not  walk  with  them  ?  "  "  He 
did  not  know.  There  was  nothing  so  important  to 
him  as  his  walk;  he  had  no  walks  to  throw  away 
on  company."  Visits  were  offered  him  from  respect 
ful  parties,  but  he  declined  them.  Admiring  friends 
offered  to  carry  him  at  their  own  cost  to  the  Yel 
lowstone  Eiver,  —  to  the  West  Indies,  —  to  South 
America.  But  though  nothing  could  be  more  grave 
or  considered  than  his  refusals,  they  remind  one  in 
quite  new  relations  of  that  fop  Brummel's  reply  to 

j 


18     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU. 

the  gentleman  who  offered  him  his  carriage  in  a 
shower,  "  But  where  will  you  ride,  then  ?  "  —  and 
what  accusing  silences,  and  what  searching  and  ir 
resistible  speeches,  battering  down  all  defences,  his 
companions  can  remember. 

Mr.  Thoreau  dedicated  his  genius  with  such  entire 
love  to  the  fields,  hills,  and  waters  of  his  native  town, 
that  he  made  them  known  and  interesting  to  all  read 
ing  Americans,  and  to  people  over  the  sea.  The  river 
on  whose  banks  he  was  born  and  died  he  knew  from 
its  springs  to  its  confluence  with  the  Merrimack.  He 
had  made  summer  and  winter  observations  on  it  for 
many  years,  and  at  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night. 
The  result  of  the  recent  survey  of  the  Water  Com 
missioners  appointed  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
he  had  reached  by  his  private  experiments,  several 
years  earlier.  Every  fact  which  occurs  in  the  bed,  on 
the  banks,  or  in  the  air  over  it;  the  fishes,  and  their 
spawning  and  nests,  their  manners,  their  food;  the 
shad-flies  which  fill  the  air  on  a  certain  evening  once 
a  year,  and  which  are  snapped  at  by  the  fishes  so 
ravenously  that  many  of  these  die  of  repletion ;  the 
conical  heaps  of  small  stones  on  the  river-shallows, 
one  of  which  heaps  will  sometimes  overfill  a  cart,  — 
these  heaps  the  huge  nests  of  small  fishes ;  the  birds 
which  frequent  the  stream,  heron,  duck,  sheldrake, 
loon,  osprey ;  the  snake,  musk-rat,  otter,  woodchuck, 
and  fox,  on  the  banks ;  the  turtle,  frog,  hyla,  and 
cricket,  which  make  the  banks  vocal,  —  were  well 
known  to  him,  and,  as  it  were,  townsmen  and  fellow- 
creatures  ;  so  that  he  felt  an  absurdity  or  violence  in 
any  narrative  of  one  of  these  by  itself  apart,  and  still 
more  of  its  dimensions  on  an  inch-rule,  or  in  the  exhi 
bition  of  its  skeleton,  or  the  specimen  of  a  squirrel  or 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH   OF   THOREAU.     19 

a  bird  in  brandy.  He  liked  to  speak  of  the  manners 
of  the  river,  as  itself  a  lawful  creature,  yet  with  exact 
ness,  and  always  to  an  observed  fact.  As  he  knew 
the  river,  so  the  ponds  in  this  region. 

One  of  the  weapons  he  used,  more  important  than 
microscope  or  alcohol-receiver  to  other  investigators, 
was  a  whim  which  grew  on  him  by  indulgence,  yet 
appeared  in  gravest  statement,  namely,  of  extolling 
his  own  town  and  neighborhood  as  the  most  favored 
centre  for  natural  observation.  He  remarked  that  the 
flora  of  Massachusetts  embraced  almost  all  the  impor 
tant  plants  of  America,  —  most  of  the  oaks,  most  of 
the  willows,  the  best  pines,  the  ash,  the  maple,  the 
beech,  the  nuts.  He  returned  Kane's  "  Arctic  Voy 
age  "  to  a  friend  of  whom  he  had  borrowed  it,  with 
the  remark  that  "  most  of  the  phenomena  noted  might 
be  observed  in  Concord."  He  seemed  a  little  envious 
of  the  Pole,  for  the  coincident  sunrise  and  sunset,  or 
five  minutes'  day  after  six  months :  a  splendid  fact, 
which  Annursnuc l  had  never  afforded  him.  He 
found  red  snow  in  one  of  his  walks,  and  told  me  that 
he  expected  to  find  yet  the  Victoria  regia  in  Concord. 
He  was  the  attorney  of  the  indigenous  plants,  and 
owned  to  a  preference  of  the  weeds  to  the  imported 
plants,  as  of  the  Indian  to  the  civilized  man;  and 
noticed  with  pleasure  that  the  willow  bean-poles  of 
his  neighbor  had  grown  more  than  his  beans.  "  See 
these  weeds,"  he  said,  "  which  have  been  hoed  at  by  a 
million  farmers  all  spring  and  summer,  and  yet  have 
prevailed,  and  just  now  come  out  triumphant  over  all 
lanes,  pastures,  fields,  and  gardens,  such  is  their  vigor. 
We  have  insulted  them  with  low  names,  too,  —  as  Pig 
weed,  Wormwood,  Chickweed,  Shad-Blossom."  He 
1  A  hill  in  Concord  on  the  border  of  Acton. 


20     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH   OF   THOREAU. 

says,  "  They  have  brave  names,  too,  —  Ambrosia,  Stel- 
laria,  Amelanchier,  Amaranth,  etc." 

I  think  his  fancy  for  referring  everything  to  the 
meridian  of  Concord  did  not  grow  out  of  any  igno 
rance  or  depreciation  of  other  longitudes  or  latitudes, 
but  was  rather  a  playful  expression  of  his  conviction 
of  the  indiiferency  of  all  places,  and  that  the  best 
place  for  each  is  where  he  stands.  He  expressed  it 
once  in  this  wise :  "  I  think  nothing  is  to  be  hoped 
from  you,  if  this  bit  of  mould  under  your  feet  is  not 
sweeter  to  you  to  eat  than  any  other  in  this  world,  or 
in  any  world." 

The  other  weapon  with  which  he  conquered  all  ob 
stacles  in  science  was  patience.  He  knew  how  to  sit 
immovable  —  a  part  of  the  rock  he  rested  on  —  until 
the  bird,  the  reptile,  the  fish,  which  had  retired  from 
him,  should  come  back  and  resume  its  habits,  —  nay, 
moved  by  curiosity,  should  come  to  him  and  watch 
him. 

It  was  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  walk  with  him. 
He  knew  the  country  like  a  fox  or  a  bird,  and  passed 
through  it  as  freely  by  paths  of  his  own.  He  knew 
every  track  in  the  snow  or  on  the  ground,  and  what 
creature  had  taken  this  path  before  him.  One  must 
submit  abjectly  to  such  a  guide,  and  the  reward  was 
great.  Under  his  arm  he  carried  an  old  music-book 
to  press  plants ;  in  his  pocket,  his  diary  and  pencil,  a 
spy-glass  for  birds,  microscope,  jack-knife,  and  twine. 
He  wore  straw  hat,  stout  shoes,  strong  gray  trousers 
to  brave  shrub-oaks  and  smilax,  and  to  climb  a  tree 
for  a  hawk's  or  a  squirrel's  nest.  He  waded  into  the 
pool  for  the  water-plants,  and  his  strong  legs  were  no 
insignificant  part  of  his  armor.  On  the  day  I  speak 
of  he  looked  for  the  Menyanthes,  detected  it  across 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF   THOREAU.     21 

the  wide  pool,  and,  on  examination  of  the  florets,  de 
cided  that  it  had  been  in  flower  five  days.  He  drew 
out  of  his  breast-pocket  his  diary,  and  read  the  names 
of  all  the  plants  that  should  bloom  on  this  day, 
whereof  he  kept  account  as  a  banker  when  his  notes 
fall  due.  The  Cypripedium  not  due  till  to-morrow. 
He  thought  that,  if  he  waked  up  from  a  trance  in  this 
swamp,  he  could  tell  by  the  plants  what  time  of  the 
year  it  was  within  two  days.  The  redstart  was  flying 
about,  and  presently  the  fine  grosbeaks,  whose  bril 
liant  scarlet  makes  "  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye,"  1 
and  whose  fine  clear  note  Thoreau  compared  to  that 
of  a  tauager  which  has  got  rid  of  its  hoarseness. 
Presently  he  heard  a  note  which  he  called  that  of  the 
night-warbler,  a  bird  he  had  never  identified,  had 
been  in  search  of  twelve  years,  which  always,  when 
he  saw  it,  was  in  the  act  of  diving  down  into  a  tree 
or  bush,  and  which  it  was  vain  to  seek ;  the  only  bird 
which  sings  indifferently  by  night  and  by  day.  I 
told  him  he  must  beware  of  finding  and  booking  it, 
lest  life  should  have  nothing  more  to  show  him.  He 
said,  u  What  you  seek  in  vain  for,  half  your  life,  one 
day  you  come  full  upon,  —  all  the  family  at  dinner. 
You  seek  it  like  a  dream,  and  as  soon  as  you  find  it 
you  become  its  prey." 

His  interest  in  the  flower  or  the  bird  lay  very  deep 
in  his  mind,  —  was  connected  with  Nature,  —  and  the 
meaning  of  Nature  was  never  attempted  to  be  defined 
by  him.  He  would  not  offer  a  memoir  of  his  observa- 

1  Sweet  Rose  !  whose  hue,  angry  and  brave, 
Bids  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye  : 
Thy  root  is  ever  in  its  grave,  — 
And  thou  must  die. 

Virtue  :  GEORGE  HERBERT. 


22      BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU. 

tions  to  the  Natural  History  Society.  "  Why  should 
I?  To  detach  the  description  from  its  connections 
in  my  mind  would  make  it  no  longer  true  or  valuable 
to  me;  and  they  do  not  wish  what  belongs  to  it." 
His  power  of  observation  seemed  to  indicate  addi 
tional  senses.  He  saw  as  with  microscope,  heard  as 
with  ear-trumpet,  and  his  memory  was  a  photographic 
register  of  all  he  saw  and  heard.  And  yet  none  knew 
better  than  he  that  it  is  not  the  fact  that  imports,  but 
the  impression  or  effect  of  the  fact  on  your  mind. 
Every  fact  lay  in  glory  in  his  mind,  a  type  of  the 
order  and  beauty  of  the  whole. 

His  determination  on  Natural  History  was  organic. 
He  confessed  that  he  sometimes  felt  like  a  hound  or  a 
panther,  and,  if  born  among  Indians,  would  have  been 
a  fell  hunter.  But,  restrained  by  his  Massachusetts 
culture,  he  played  out  the  game  in  this  mild  form  of 
botany  and  ichthyology.  His  intimacy  with  animals 
suggested  what  Thomas  Fuller  records  of  Butler  the 
apiologist,  that  "  either  he  had  told  the  bees  things 
or  the  bees  had  told  him."  Snakes  coiled  round  his 
leg ;  the  fishes  swam  into  his  hand,  and  he  took  them 
out  of  the  water ;  he  pulled  the  woodchuck  out  of  its 
hole  by  the  tail,  and  took  the  foxes  under  his  protec-  r 
tion  from  the  hunters.  Our  naturalist  had  perfect 
magnanimity ;  he  had  no  secrets :  he  would  carry  you 
to  the  heron's  haunt,  or  even  to  his  most  prized  bo 
tanical  swamp,  —  possibly  knowing  that  you  could 
never  find  it  again,  yet  willing  to  take  his  risks. 

No  college  ever  offered  him  a  diploma,  or  a  profes 
sor's  chair ;  no  academy  made  him  its  corresponding 
secretary,  its  discoverer,  or  even  its  member.  Per 
haps  these  learned  bodies  feared  the  satire  of  his 
presence.  Yet  so  much  knowledge  of  Nature's  secret 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF '  THOREA  U.       23 

and  genius  few  others  possessed,  none  in  a  more  large 
and  religious  synthesis.  For  not  a  particle  of  respect 
had  he  to  the  opinions  of  any  man  or  body  of  men, 
but  homage  solely  to  the  truth  itself ;  and  as  he  dis 
covered  everywhere  among  doctors  some  leaning  of 
courtesy,  it  discredited  them.  He  grew  to  be  revered 
and  admired  by  his  townsmen,  who  had  at  first  known 
him  only  as  an  oddity.  The  farmers  who  employed 
him  as  a  surveyor  soon  discovered  his  rare  accuracy 
and  skill,  his  knowledge  of  their  lands,  of  trees,  of 
birds,  of  Indian  remains  and  the  like,  which  enabled 
him  to  tell  every  farmer  more  than  he  knew  before 
of  his  own  farm ;  so  that  he  began  to  feel  a  little  as 
if  Mr.  Thoreau  had  better  rights  in  his  land  than  he. 
They  felt,  too,  the  superiority  of  character  which  ad 
dressed  all  men  with  a  native  authority. 

Indian  relics  abound  in  Concord,  —  arrow-heads, 
stone  chisels,  pestles,  and  fragments  of  pottery ;  and 
on  the  river-bank,  large  heaps  of  clam-shells  and  ashes 
mark  spots  which  the  savages  frequented.  These, 
and  every  circumstance  touching  the  Indian,  were  im 
portant  in  his  eyes.  His  visits  to  Maine  were  chiefly 
for  love  of  the  Indian.  He  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  the  manufacture  of  the  bark-canoe,  as  well  as 
of  trying  his  hand  in  its  management  on  the  rapids. 
He  was  inquisitive  about  the  making  of  the  stone 
arrow-head,  and  in  his  last  days  charged  a  youth  set 
ting  out  for  the  Eocky  Mountains  to  find  an  Indian 
who  could  tell  him  that :  "  It  was  well  worth  a  visit 
to  California  to  learn  it."  Occasionally,  a  small 'party 
of  Penobscot  Indians  would  visit  Concord,  and  pitch 
their  tents  for  a  few  weeks  in  summer  on  the  river- 
bank.  He  failed  not  to  make  acquaintance  with  the 
best  of  them  ;  though  he  well  knew  that  asking  ques- 


24     BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  THOREAV. 

tions  of  Indians  is  like  catechizing  beavers  and  rab 
bits.  In  his  last  visit  to  Maine  he  had  great  satis 
faction  from  Joseph  Polis,  an  intelligent  Indian  of 
Oldtown,  who  was  his  guide  for  some  weeks. 

He  was  equally  interested  in  every  natural  fact. 
The  depth  of  his  perception  found  likeness  of  law 
throughout  Nature,  and  I  know  not  any  genius  who 
so  swiftly  inferred  universal  law  from  the  single  fact. 
He  was  no  pedant  of  a  department.  His  eye  was 
open  to  beauty,  and  his  ear  to  music.  He  found 
these,  not  in  rare  conditions,  but  wheresoever  he  went. 
He  thought  the  best  of  music  was  in  single  strains ; 
and  he  found  poetic  suggestion  in  the  humming  of 
the  telegraph  wire. 

His  poetry  might  be  bad  or  good;  he  no  doubt 
wanted  a  lyric  facility  and  technical  skill ;  but  he  had 
the  source  of  poetry  in  his  spiritual  perception.  He 
was  a  good  reader  and  critic,  and  his  judgment  on 
poetry  was  to  the  ground  of  it.  He  could  not  be  de 
ceived  as  to  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  poetic 
element  in  any  composition,  and  his  thirst  for  this 
made  him  negligent  and  perhaps  scornful  of  superfi 
cial  graces.  He  would  pass  by  many  delicate  rhythms, 
but  he  would  have  detected  every  live  stanza  or  line 
in  a  volume,  and  knew  very  well  where  to  find  an 
equal  poetic  charm  in  prose.  He  was  so  enamored 
of  the  spiritual  beauty  that  he  held  all  actual  written 
poems  in  very  light  esteem  in  the  comparison.  He 
admired  ^Eschylus  and  Pindar;  but,  when  some  one 
was  co*mmending  them,  he  said  that  ^Eschylus  and  the 
Greeks,  in  describing  Apollo  and  Orpheus,  had  given 
no  song,  or  no  good  one.  "  They  ought  not  to  have 
moved  trees,  but  to  have  chanted  to  the  gods  such  a 
hymn  as  would  have  sung  all  their  old  ideas  out  of 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH   OF   THOREAU.     25 

their  heads,  and  new  ones  in."  His  own  verses  are 
often  rude  and  defective.  The  gold  does  not  yet  run 
pure,  —  is  drossy  and  crude.  The  thyme  and  mar 
joram  are  not  yet  honey.  But  if  he  want  lyric  fine 
ness  and  technical  merits,  if  he  have  not  the  poetic 
temperament,  he  never  lacks  the  causal  thought,  show 
ing  that  his  genius  was  better  than  his  talent.  He 
knew  the  worth  of  the  Imagination  for  the  uplifting 
and  consolation  of  human  life,  and  liked  to  throw 
every  thought  into  a  symbol.  The  fact  you  tell  is  of 
no  value,  but  only  the  impression.  For  this  reason 
his  presence  was  poetic,  always  piqued  the  curiosity 
to  know  more  deeply  the  secrets  of  his  mind.  He 
had  many  reserves,  an  unwillingness  to  exhibit  to  pro 
fane  eyes  what  was  still  sacred  in  his  own,  and  knew 
well  how  to  throw  a  poetic  veil  over  his  experience. 
All  readers  of  "  Walden  "  will  remember  his  myth 
ical  record  of  his  disappointments  :  - 

"  I  long  ago  lost  a  hound,  a  bay  horse,  and  a  turtle 
dove,  and  am  still  on  their  trail.  Many  are  the  trav 
ellers  I  have  spoken  concerning  them,  describing  their 
tracks,  and  what  calls  they  answered  to.  I  have  met 
one  or  two  who  had  heard  the  hound,  and  the  tramp 
of  the  horse,  and  even  seen  the  dove  disappear  behind 
a  cloud ;  and  they  seemed  as  anxious  to  recover  them 
as  if  they  had  lost  them  themselves."  l 

His  riddles  were  worth  the  reading,  and  I  confide, 
that,  if  at  any  time  I  do  not  understand  the  expression, 
it  is  yet  just.  Such  was  the  wealth  of  his  truth  that  it 
was  not  worth  his  while  to  use  words  in  vain.  His 
poem  entitled  "  Sympathy "  reveals  the  tenderness 
under  that  triple  steel  of  stoicism,  and  the  intellec 
tual  subtilty  it  could  animate.  His  classic  poem  on 
1  Walden,  p.  20. 


26      BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU. 

"  Smoke  "  suggests  Simonides,  but  is  better  than  any 
poem  of  Simonides.  His  biography  is  in  his  verses. 
His  habitual  thought  makes  all  his  poetry  a  hymn  to 
the  Cause  of  causes,  the  Spirit  which  vivifies  and  con 
trols  his  own. 

"  I  hearing  get,  who  had  but  ears, 
And  sight,  who  had  but  eyes  before  ; 
I  moments  live,  who  lived  but  years, 
And  truth  discern,  who  knew  but  learning's  lore." 

And  still  more  in  these  religious  lines :  — 

"Now  chiefly  is  my  natal  hour, 
And  only  now  my  prime  of  life  ; 
I  will  not  doubt  the  love  untold, 
Which  not  my  worth  or  want  have  bought, 
Which  wooed  me  young,  and  wooes  me  old, 
And  to  this  evening  hath  me  brought." 

Whilst  he  used  in  his  writings  a  certain  petulance 
of  remark  in  reference  to  churches  or  churchmen,  he 
was  a  person  of  a  rare,  tender,  and  absolute  religion, 
a  person  incapable  of  any  profanation,  by  act  or  by 
thought.  Of  course,  the  same  isolation  which  be 
longed  to  his  original  thinking  and  living  detached 
him  from  the  social  religious  forms.  This  is  neither 
to  be  censured  nor  regretted.  Aristotle  long  ago 
explained  it,  when  he  said,  "  One  who  surpasses  his 
fellow-citizens  in  virtue  is  no  longer  a  part  of  the 
city.  Their  law  is  not  for  him,  since  he  is  a  law  to 
himself." 

Thoreau  was  sincerity  itself,  and  might  fortify  the 
convictions  of  prophets  in  the  ethical  laws  by  his  holy 
living.  It  was  an  affirmative  experience  which  refused 
to  be  set  aside.  A  truth-speaker  he,  capable  of  the 
most  deep  and  strict  conversation  ;  a  physician  to 
the  wounds  of  any  soul ;  a  friend,  knowing  not  only 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU.      27 

the  secret  of  friendship,  but  almost  worshipped  by 
those  few  persons  who  resorted  to  him  as  their  con 
fessor  and  prophet,  and  knew  the  deep  value  of  his 
mind  and  great  heart.  He  thought  that  without  re 
ligion  or  devotion  of  some  kind  nothing  great  was 
ever  accomplished :  and  he  thought  that  the  bigoted 
sectarian  had  better  bear  this  in  mind. 

His  virtues,  of  course,  sometimes  ran  into  extremes. 
It  was  easy  to  trace  to  the  inexorable  demand  on  all 
for  exact  truth  that  austerity  which  made  this  willing 
hermit  more  solitary  even  than  he  wished.  Himself 
of  a  perfect  probity,  he  required  not  less  of  others. 
He  had  a  disgust  at  crime,  and  no  worldly  success 
could  cover  it.  He  detected  paltering  as  readily  in 
dignified  and  prosperous  persons  as  in  beggars,  and 
with  equal  scorn.  Such  dangerous  frankness  was  in 
his  dealing  that  his  admirers  called  him  "that  ter 
rible  Thoivau,"  as  it'  In-  spoke  when  silent,  and  was 
still  present  \shen  lie  had  departed.  I  think  the 
severity  of  his  ideal  interfered  to  deprive  him  of  a 
healthy  sufficiency  of  human  society. 

The  habit  of  a  realist  to  find  things  the  reverse  of 
their  appearance  inclined  him  to  put  every  statement 
in  a  paradox.  A  certain  habit  of  antagonism  defaced 
his  earlier  writings,  —  a  trick  of  rhetoric  not  quite 
outgrown  in  his  later,  of  substituting  for  the  obvious 
word  and  thought  its  diametrical  opposite.  He  praised 
wild  mountains  and  winter  forests  for  their  domestic 
air,  in  snow  and  ice  he  would  find  sultriness,  and  com 
mended  the  wilderness  for  resembling  Rome  and 
Paris.  "  It  was  so  dry,  that  you  might  call  it  wet." 

The  tendency  to  magnify  the  moment,  to  read  all 
the  laws  of  Nature  in  the  one  object  or  one  combina 
tion  under  your  eye,  is  of  course  comic  to  those  who 


28     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH   OF  THOREAU. 

do  not  share  the  philosopher's  perception  of  identity. 
To  him  there  was  no  such  thing  as  size.  The  pond 
was  a  small  ocean ;  the  Atlantic,  a  large  Walden 
Pond.  He  referred  every  minute  fact  to  cosinical 
laws.  Though  he  meant  to  be  just,  he  seemed 
haunted  by  a  certain  chronic  assumption  that  the  sci 
ence  of  the  day  pretended  completeness,  and  he  had 
just  found  out  that  the  savans  had  neglected  to  dis 
criminate  a  particular  botanical  variety,  had  failed  to 
describe  the  seeds  or  count  the  sepals.  "  That  is  to 
say,"  he  replied,  "  the  blockheads  were  not  born  in 
Concord ;  but  who  said  they  were  ?  It  was  their  un 
speakable  misfortune  to  be  born  in  London,  or  Paris, 
or  Rome  ;  but,  poor  fellows,  they  did  what  they  could, 
considering  that  they  never  saw  Bateman's  Pond,  or 
Nine-Acre  Corner,  or  Becky-Stow's  Swamp.  Besides, 
what  were  you  sent  into  the  world  for,  but  to  add  this 
observation  ?  " 

Had  his  genius  been  only  contemplative,  he  had 
been  fitted  to  his  life,  but  with  his  energy  and  practi 
cal  ability  he  seemed  born  for  great  enterprise  and  for 
command ;  and  I  so  much  regret  the  loss  of  his  rare 
powers  of  action,  that  I  cannot  help  counting  it  a 
fault  in  him  that  he  had  no  ambition.  Wanting  this, 
instead  of  engineering  for  all  America,  he  was  the 
captain  of  a  huckleberry  party.  Pounding  beans  is 
good  to  the  end  of  pounding  empires  one  of  these 
days  ;  but  if,  at  the  end  of  years,  it  is  still  only 
beans  ! 

But  these  foibles,  real  or  apparent,  were  fast  van 
ishing  in  the  incessant  growth  of  a  spirit  so  robust 
and  wise,  and  which  effaced  its  defeats  with  new 
triumphs.  His  study  of  Nature  was  a  perpetual  or 
nament  to  him,  and  inspired  his  friends  with  curi- 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU.     29 

osity  to  see  the  world  through  his  eyes,  and  to  hear 
his  adventures.  They  possessed  every  kind  of  in 
terest. 

He  had  many  elegancies  of  his  own,  whilst  he 
scoffed  at  conventional  elegance.  Thus,  he  could  not 
bear  to  hear  the  sound  of  his  own  steps,  the  grit  of 
gravel ;  and  therefore  never  willingly  walked  in  the 
road,  but  in  the  grass,  on  mountains  and  in  woods. 
His  senses  were  acute,  and  he  remarked  that  by  night 
every  dwelling-house  gives  out  bad  air,  like  a  slaughter 
house.  He  liked  the  pure  fragrance  of  melilot.1  He 
honored  certain  plants  with  special  regard,  and,  over 
all,  the  pond-lily, —  then,  the  gentian,  and  the  Mikania 
scandens?  and  "  life-everlasting,"  and  a  bass  -  tree 
which  he  visited  every  year  when  it  bloomed,  in  the 
middle  of  July.  He  thought  the  scent  a  more  orac 
ular  inquisition  than  the  sight,  —  more  oracular  and 
trustworthy.  The  scent,  of  course,  reveals  what  is 
concealed  from  the  other  senses.  By  it  he  detected 
earthiness.  He  delighted  in  echoes,  and  said  they 
were  almost  the  only  kind  of  kindred  voices  that  he 
heard.  He  loved  Nature  so  well,  was  so  happy  in  her 
solitude,  that  he  became  very  jealous  of  cities,  and  the 
sad  work  which  their  refinements  and  artifices  made 
with  man  and  his  dwelling.  The  axe  was  always  de 
stroying  his  forest.  "  Thank  God,"  he  said,  "  they 
cannot  cut  down  the  clouds  !  "  "  All  kinds  of  figures 
are  drawn  on  the  blue  ground  with  this  fibrous  white 
paint." 

I  subjoin  a  few  sentences  taken  from  his  unpub 
lished  manuscripts,  not  only  as  records  of  his  thought 
and  feeling,  but  for  their  power  of  description  and 
literary  excellence. 

1  Sweet  clover.  2  Climbing  hemp-weed. 


30      BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU. 

"  Some  circumstantial  evidence  is  very  strong,  as 
when  you  find  a  trout  in  the  milk/' 

"  The  chub  is  a  soft  fish,  and  tastes  like  boiled 
brown  paper  salted." 

"  The  youth  gets  together  his  materials  to  build  a 
bridge  to  the  moon,  or,  perchance,  a  palace  or  temple 
on  the  earth,  and  at  length  the  middle-aged  man  con 
cludes  to  build  a  wood-shed  with  them." 

"  The  locust  z-ing." 

"  Devil's-needles  zigzagging  along  the  Nut-Meadow 
brook." 

"  Sugar  is  not  so  sweet  to  the  palate  as  sound  to 
the  healthy  ear." 

"  I  put  on  some  hemlock-boughs,  and  the  rich  salt 
crackling  of  their  leaves  was  like  mustard  to  the  ear, 
the  crackling  of  uncountable  regiments.  Dead  trees 
love  the  fire." 

"  The  bluebird  carries  the  sky  on  his  back." 

"  The  tanager  flies  through  the  green  foliage  as  if 
it  would  ignite  the  leaves." 

"  If  I  wish  for  a  horse-hair  for  my  compass-sight,  I 
must  go  to  the  stable;  but  the  hair-bird,  with  her 
sharp  eyes,  goes  to  the  road." 

"  Immortal  water,  alive  even  to  the  superficies." 

"  Fire  is  the  most  tolerable  third  party." 

"  Nature  made  ferns  for  pure  leaves,  to  show  what 
she  could  do  in  that  line." 

"  No  tree  has  so  fair  a  bole  and  so  handsome  an  in 
step  as  the  beech." 

"  How  did  these  beautiful  rainbow-tints  get  into 
the  shell  of  the  fresh-water  clam,  buried  in  the  mud  at 
the  bottom  of  our  dark  river  ?  " 

"  Hard  are  the  times  when  the  infant's  shoes  are 
second-foot." 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU.      31 

"  We  are  strictly  confined  to  our  men  to  whom  we 
give  liberty." 

"  Of  what  significance  the  things  you  can  forget  ? 
A  little  thought  is  sexton  to  all  the  world." 

"  How  can  we  expect  a  harvest  of  thought  who  have 
not  had  a  seed-time  of  character  ?  " 

"  Only  he  can  be  trusted  with  gifts  who  can  present 
a  face  of  bronze  to  expectations." 

"  I  ask  to  be  melted.  You  can  only  ask  of  the 
metals  that  they  be  tender  to  the  fire  that  melts  them, 
To  naught  else  can  they  be  tender." 

There  is  a  flower  known  to  botanists,  one  of  the 
same  genus  with  our  summer  plant  called  "  Life 
Everlasting,"  a  Gnaphalium  like  that,  which  grows 
on  the  most  inaccessible  cliffs  of  the  Tyrolese  moun 
tains,  where  the  chamois  dare  hardly  venture,  and 
which  the  hunter,  tempted  by  its  beauty,  and  by  his 
love,  (for  it  is  immensely  valued  by  the  Swiss  maid 
ens,)  climbs  the  cliffs  to  gather,  and  is  sometimes 
found  dead  at  the  foot,  with  the  flower  in  his  hand. 
It  is  called  by  botanists  the  Gnaphalium  leontopo* 
dium,  but  by  the  Swiss  Edelweiss?  which  signifies 
Noble  Purity.  Thoreau  seemed  to  me  living  in  the 
hope  to  gather  this  plant,  which  belonged  to  him  of 
right.  The  scale  on  which  his  studies  proceeded  was 
so  large  as  to  require  longevity,  and  we  were  the  less 
prepared  for  his  sudden  disappearance.  The  country 
knows  not  yet,  or  in  the  least  part,  how  great  a  son  it 
has  lost.  It  seems  an  injury  that  he  should  leave  in 
the  midst  his  broken  task,  which  none  else  can  finish, 
—  a  kind  of  indignity  to  so  noble  a  soul,  that  he 
should  depart  out  of  Nature  before  yet  he  has  been 
1  Pronounced  a' del-vice. 


32     BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  OF   THOREAU. 

really  shown  to  his  peers  for  what  he  is.  But  he,  at 
least,  is  content.  His  soul  was  made  for  the  noblest 
society ;  he  had  in  a  short  life  exhausted  the  capa 
bilities  of  this  world ;  wherever  there  is  knowledge, 
wherever  there  is  virtue,  wherever  there  is  beauty,  he 
will  find  a  home. 


THE    SUCCESSION   OF    FOREST   TREES. 


EVERY  man  is  entitled  to  come  to  Cattle-show, 
even  a  transcendentalist ; l  and  for  my  part  I  am 
more  interested  in  the  men  than  in  the  cattle.  I  wish 
to  see  once  more  those  old  familiar  faces,  whose  names 
I  do  not  know,  which  for  me  represent  the  Middle 
sex  2  country,  and  come  as  near  being  indigenous  to 
the  soil  as  a  white  man  can ;  the  men  who  are  not 
above  their  business,  whose  coats  are  not  too  black, 
whose  shoes  do  not  shine  very  much,  who  never  wear 
gloves  to  conceal  their  hands.  It  is  true,  there  are 
some  queer  specimens  of  humanity  attracted  to  our 
festival,  but  all  are  welcome.  I  am  pretty  sure  to 
meet  once  more  that  weak-minded  and  whimsical  fel 
low,  generally  weak-bodied  too,  who  prefers  a  crooked 
stick  for  a  cane ;  perfectly  useless,  you  would  say, 
only  bizarre,  fit  for  a  cabinet,  like  a  petrified  snake. 
A  ram's  horn  would  be  as  convenient,  and  is  yet  more 
curiously  twisted.  He  brings  that  much  indulged  bit 
of  the  country  with  him,  from  some  town's  end  or 
other,  and  introduces  it  to  Concord  groves,  as  if  he 
had  promised  it  so  much  sometime.  So  some,  it  seems 

1  The  name  transcendentalist  was  given  to  Emerson,  Thoreau, 
and  others  of  similar  ways  of  thinking. 

2  Concord  is  in  Middlesex  County,  Massachusetts,  and  this 
paper  was  an  address  read  to  the  Middlesex  Agricultural  So 
ciety  at  the  fair  commonly  called  a  Cattle-show. 


34  THOREA  U. 

to  me,  elect  their  rulers  for  their  crookedness.  But  I 
think  that  a  straight  stick  makes  the  beat  canet  and 
an  upright  man  the  best"  ruler.  Or  why  ~clibose  a 
man  to"3b"^Ialn  work~^who~  is  distinguished  for  his 
oddity  ?  However,  I  do  not  know  but  you  will  think 
that  they  have  committed  this  mistake  who  invited 
me  to  speak  to  you  to-day. 

In  my  capacity  of  surveyor  I  have  often  talked  with 
some  of  you,  my  employers,  at  your  dinner-tables, 
after  having  gone  round  and  round  and  behind  your 
farming,  and  ascertained  exactly  what  its  limits  were. 
Moreover,  taking  a  surveyor's  and  a  naturalist's  lib 
erty,  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  going  across  your 
lots  much  oftener  than  is  usual,  as  many  of  you,  per 
haps  to  your  sorrow,  are  aware.  Yet  many  of  you,  to 
my  relief,  have  seemed  not  to  be  aware  of  it ;  and 
when  I  came  across  you  in  some  out-of-the-way  nook 
of  your  farms,  have  inquired,  with  an  air  of  surprise, 
if  I  were  not  lost,  since  you  had  never  seen  me  in  that 
part  of  the  town  or  county  before ;  when,  if  the  truth 
were  known,  and  it  had  not  been  for  betraying  my 
secret,  I  might  with  more  propriety  have  inquired  if 
you  were  not  lost,  since  I  had  never  seen  you  there 
before.  I  have  several  times  shown  the  proprietor 
the  shortest  way  out  of  his  wood-lot. 

Therefore,  it  would  seem  that  I  have  some  title  to 
speak  to  you  to-day ;  and  considering  what  that  title 
is,  and  the  occasion  that  has  called  us  together,  I  need 
offer  no  apology  if  I  invite  your  attention,  for  the 
few  moments  that  are  allotted  me,  to  a  purely  scien 
tific  subject. 

At  those  dinner-tables  referred  to,  I  have  often 
been  asked,  as  many  of  you  have  been,  if  I  could  tell 
how  it  happened,  that  when  a  pine  wood  was  cut 


THE   SUCCESSION   OF  FOREST   TREES.       35 

down  an  oak  one  commonly  sprang  up,  and  vice  versa. 
To  which  I  have  answered,  and  now  answer,  that  I 
can  tell,  —  that  it  is  no  mystery  to  me.  As  I  am  not 
aware  that  this  has  been  clearly  shown  by  any  one,  I 
shall  lay  the  more  stress  on  this  point.  Let  me  lead 
you  back  into  your  wood-lots  again. 

When,  hereabouts,  a  single  forest  tree  or  a  forest 
springs  up  naturally  where  none  of  its  kind  grew  be 
fore,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  though  in  some  quarters 
still  it  may  sound  paradoxical,  that  it  came  from  a 
seed.  Of  the  various  ways  by  which  trees  are  known 
to  be  propagated,  —  by  transplanting,  cuttings,  and 
the  like,  —  this  is  the  only  supposable  one  under 
these  circumstances.  No  such  tree  has  ever  been 
known  to  spring  from  anything  else.  If  any  one  as 
serts  that  it  sprang  from  something  else,  or  from  noth 
ing,  the  burden  of  proof  lies  with  him. 

It  remains,  then,  only  to  show  how  the  seed  is 
transported  from  where  it  grows  to  where  it  is 
planted.  This  is  done  chiefly  by  the  agency  of  the 
wind,  water,  and  animals.  The  lighter  seeds,  as 
those  of  pines  and  maples,  are  transported  chiefly  by 
wind  and  water  ;  the  heavier,  as  acorns  and  nuts,  by 
animals. 

In  all  the  pines,  a  very  thin  membrane,  in  appear 
ance  much  like  an  insect's  wing,  grows  over  and 
around  the  seed,  and  independent  of  it,  while  the 
latter  is  being  developed  within  its  base.  Indeed, 
this  is  often  perfectly  developed,  though  the  seed  is 
abortive  ;  nature  being,  you  would  say,  more  sure  to 
provide  the  means  of  transporting  the  seed  than  to 
provide  the  seed  to  be  transported.  In  other  words,  a 
beautiful  thin  sack  is  woven  around  the  seed,  with  a 
handle  to  it  such  as  the  wind  can  take  hold  of,  and  it 


36  THOREA  U. 

is  then  committed  to  the  wind,  expressly  that  it  may 
transport  the  seed  and  extend  the  range  of  the  spe 
cies  ;  and  this  it  does  as  effectually  as  when  seeds 
are  sent  by  mail  in  a  different  kind  of  sack  from  the 
patent-office.  There  is  a  patent-office  at  the  seat  of 
government  of  the  universe,  whose  managers  are  as 
much  interested  in  the  dispersion  of  seeds  as  anybody 
at  Washington  can  be,  and  their  operations  are  infi 
nitely  more  extensive  and  regular. 

There  is  then  no  necessity  for  supposing  that  the 
pines  have  sprung  up  from  nothing,  and  I  am  aware 
that  I  am  not  at  all  peculiar  in  asserting  that  they 
come  from  seeds,  though  the  mode  of  their  propaga 
tion  by  nature  has  been  but  little  attended  to.  They 
are  very  extensively  raised  from  the  seed  in  Europe, 
and  are  beginning  to  be  here. 

When  you  cut  down  an  oak  wood,  a  pine  wood  will 
not  at  once  spring  up  there  unless  there  are,  or  have 
been,  quite  recently,  seed-bearing  pines  near  enough 
for  the  seeds  to  be  blown  from  them.  But,  adjacent 
to  a  forest  of  pines,  if  you  prevent  other  crops  from 
growing  there,  you  will  surely  have  an  extension  of 
your  pine  forest,  provided  the  soil  is  suitable. 

As  for  the  heavy  seeds  and  nuts  which  are  not  fur-  r 
nished  with  wings,  the  notion  is  still  a  very  common 
one  that,  when  the  trees  which  bear  these  spring  up 
where  none  of  their  kind  were  noticed  before,  they 
have  come  from  seeds  or  other  principles  sponta 
neously  generated  there  in  an  unusual  manner,  or 
which  have  lain  dormant  in  the  soil  for  centuries, 
or  perhaps  been  called  into  activity  by  the  heat  of  a 
burning.  I  do  not  believe  these  assertions,  and  I  will 
state  some  of  the  ways  in  which,  according  to  my 
observation,  such  forests  are  planted  and  raised. 


THE   SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST   TREES.       37 

Every  one  of  these  seeds,  too,  will  be  found  to  be 
winged  or  legged  in  another  fashion.  Surely  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  cherry-trees  of  all  kinds  are  widely 
dispersed,  since  their  fruit  is  well  known  to  be  the 
favorite  food  of  various  birds.  Many  kinds  are  called 
bird-cherries,  and  they  appropriate  many  more  kinds, 
which  are  not  so  called.  Eating  cherries  is  a  bird- 
like  employment,  and  unless  we  disperse  the  seeds 
occasionally,  as  they  do,  I  shall  think  that  the  birds 
have  the  best  right  to  them.  See  how  artfully  the 
seed  of  a  cherry  is  placed  in  order  that  a  bird  may  be 
compelled  to  transport  it  —  in  the  very  midst  of  a 
tempting  pericarp,  so  that  the  creature  that  would  de 
vour  this  must  commonly  take  the  stone  also  into  its 
mouth  or  bill.  If  you  ever  ate  a  cherry  and  did  not 
make  two  bites  of  it,  you  must  have  perceived  it  — 
right  in  the  centre  of  the  luscious  morsel,  a  large 
earthy  residuum  left  on  the  tongue.  We  thus  take 
into  our  mouths  cherry-stones  as  big  as  peas,  a  dozen 
at  once,  for  Nature  can  persuade  us  to  do  almost 
anything  when  she  would  compass  her  ends.  Some 
wild  men  and  children  instinctively  swallow  these,  as 
the  birds  do  when  in  a  hurry,  it  being  the  shortest 
way  to  get  rid  of  them.  Thus,  though  these  seeds 
are  not  provided  with  vegetable  wings,  Nature  has 
impelled  the  thrush  tribe  to  take  them  into  their 
bills  and  fly  away  with  them ;  and  they  are  winged 
in  another  sense,  and  more  effectually  than  the  seeds 
of  pines,  for  these  are  carried  even  against  the  wind. 
The  consequence  is,  that  cherry-trees  grow  not  only 
here  but  there.  The  same  is  true  of  a  great  many 
other  seeds. 

But  to  come  to  the  observation  which  suggested 
these  remarks.     As  I  have  said,  I  suspect  that  I  can 


38  THOREA  U. 

throw  some  light  on  the  fact,  that  when  hereabouts  a 
dense  pine  wood  is  cut  down,  oaks  and  other  hard 
woods  may  at  once  take  its  place.  I  have  got  only  to 
show  that  the  acorns  and  nuts,  provided  they  are 
grown  in  the  neighborhood,  are  regularly  planted  in 
such  woods  ;  for  I  assert  that  if  an  oak-tree  has  not 
grown  within  ten  miles,  and  man  has  not  carried 
acorns  thither,  then  an  oak  wood  will  not  spring  up 
at  once,  when  a  pine  wood  is  cut  down. 

Apparently,  there  were  only  pines  there  before. 
They  are  cut  off,  and  after  a  year  or  two  you  see  oaks 
and  other  hard  woods  springing  up  there,  with  scarcely 
a  pine  amid  them,  and  the  wonder  commonly  is,  how 
the  seed  could  have  lain  in  the  ground  so  long  with 
out  decaying.  But  the  truth  is,  that  it  has  not  lain  in 
the  ground  so  long,  but  is  regularly  planted  each  year 
by  various  quadrupeds  and  birds. 

In  this  neighborhood,  where  oaks  and  pines  are 
about  equally  dispersed,  if  you  look  through  the  thick 
est  pine  wood,  even  the  seemingly  unmixed  pitch-pine 
ones,  you  will  commonly  detect  many  little  .oaks, 
birches,  and  other  hard  woods,  sprung  from  seeds  car 
ried  into  the  thicket  by  squirrels  and  other  animals, 
and  also  blown  thither,  but  which  are  overshadowed 
and  choked  by  the  pines.  The  denser  the  evergreen 
wood,  the  more  likely  it  is  to  be  well  planted  with 
these  seeds,  because  the  planters  incline  to  resort 
with  their  forage  to  the  closest  covert.  They  also 
carry  it  into  birch  and  other  woods.  This  planting 
is  carried  on  annually,  and  the  oldest  seedlings  an 
nually  die  ;  but  when  the  pines  are  cleared  off,  the 
oaks,  having  got  just  the  start  they  want,  and  now 
secured  favorable  conditions,  immediately  spring  up 
to  trees. 


THE   SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.       39 

The  shade  of  a  dense  pine  wood  is  more  unfavor 
able  to  the  springing  up  of  pines  of  the  same  species 
than  of  oaks  within  it,  though  the  former  may  come 
up  abundantly  when  the  pines  are  cut,  if  there  chance 
to  be  sound  seed  in  the  ground. 

But  when  you  cut  off  a  lot  of  hard  wood,  very  often 
the  little  pines  mixed  with  it  have  a  similar  start,  for 
the  squirrels  have  carried  off  the  nuts  to  the  pines, 
and  not  to  the  more  open  wood,  and  they  commonly 
make  pretty  clean  work  of  it ;  and  moreover,  if  the 
wood  was  old,  the  sprouts  will  be  feeble  or  entirely 
fail ;  to  say  nothing  about  the  soil  being,  in  a  measure, 
exhausted  for  this  kind  of  crop. 

If  a  pine  wood  is  surrounded  by  a  white-oak  one 
chiefly,  white-oaks  may  be  expected  to  succeed  when 
the  pines  are  cut.  If  it  is  surrounded  instead  by  an 
edging  of  shrub-oaks,  then  you  will  probably  have  a 
dense  shrub-oak  thicket. 

I  have  no  time  to  go  into  details,  but  will  say,  in  a 
word,  that  while  the  wind  is  conveying  the  seeds  of 
pines  into  hard  woods  and  open  lands,  the  squirrels 
and  other  animals  are  conveying  the  seeds  of  oaks  and 
walnuts  into  the  pine  woods,  and  thus  a  rotation  of 
crops  is  kept  up. 

I  affirmed  this  confidently  many  years  ago,  and 
an  occasional  examination  of  dense  pine  woods  con 
firmed  me  in  my  opinion.  It  has  long  been  known 
to  observers  that  squirrels  bury  nuts  in  the  ground, 
but  I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  has  thus  accounted 
for  the  regular  succession  of  forests. 

On  the  24th  of  September,  in  1857,  as  1  was  pad 
dling  down  the  Assabet,  in  this  town,  I  saw  a  red 
squirrel  run  along  the  bank  under  some  herbage,  with 
something  large  in  its  mouth.  It  stopped  near  the 


40  THOREAU. 

foot  of  a  hemlock,  within  a  couple  of  rods  of  me,  and, 
hastily  pawing  a  hole  with  its  forefeet,  dropped  its 
booty  into  it,  covered  it  up,  and  retreated  part  way 
up  the  trunk  of  the  tree.  As  I  approached  the  shore 
to  examine  the  deposit,  the  squirrel,  descending  part 
way,  betrayed  no  little  anxiety  about  its  treasure, 
and  made  two  or  three  motions  to  recover  it  before  it 
finally  retreated.  Digging  there,  I  found  two  green 
pig-nuts  joined  together,  with  the  thick  husks  on, 
buried  about  an  inch  and  a  half  under  the  reddish 
soil  of  decayed  hemlock  leaves,  —  just  the  right  depth 
to  plant  it.  In  short,  this  squirrel  was  then  engaged 
in  accomplishing  two  objects,  to  wit,  laying  up  a  store 
of  winter  food  for  itself,  and  planting  a  hickory  wood 
for  all  creation.  If  the  squirrel  was  killed,  or  neg 
lected  its  deposit,  a  hickory  would  spring  up.  The 
nearest  hickory  tree  was  twenty  rods  distant.  These 
nuts  were  there  still  just  fourteen  days  later,  but  were 
gone  when  I  looked  again,  November  21,  or  six  weeks 
later  still. 

I  have  since  examined  more  carefully  several  dense 
woods,  which  are  said  to  be,  and  are  apparently  ex 
clusively  pine,  and  always  with  the  same  result.  For 
instance,  I  walked  the  same  day  to  a  small  but  very 
dense  and  handsome  white-pine  grove,  about  fifteen 
rods  square,  in  the  east  part  of  this  town.  The  trees 
are  large  for  Concord,  being  from  ten  to  twenty 
inches  in  diameter,  and  as  exclusively  pine  as  any 
wood  that  I  know.  Indeed,  I  selected  this  wood  be 
cause  I  thought  it  the  least  likely  to  contain  anything 
else.  It  stands  on  an  open  plain  or  pasture,  except 
that  it  adjoins  another  small  pine  wood,  which  has  a 
few  little  oaks  in  it,  on  the  southeast  side.  On  every 
other  side  it  was  at  least  thirty  rods  from  the  nearest 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.   41 

woods.  Standing  on  the  edge  of  this  grove  and  look 
ing  through  it,  for  it  is  quite  level  and  free  from  un 
derwood,  for  the  most  part  bare,  red-carpeted  ground, 
you  would  have  said  that  there  was  not  a  hard-wood 
tree  in  it,  young  or  old.  But  on  looking  carefully 
along  over  its  floor  I  discovered,  though  it  was  not  till 
my  eye  had  got  used  to  the  search,  that,  alternating 
with  thin  ferns  and  small  blueberry  bushes,  there  was, 
not  merely  here  and  there,  but  as  often  as  every  five 
feet  and  with  a  degree  of  regularity,  a  little  oak,  from 
three  to  twelve  inches  high,  and  in  one  place  I  found 
a  green  acorn  dropped  by  the  base  of  a  pine. 

I  confess,  I  was  surprised  to  find  my  theory  so 
perfectly  proved  in  this  case.  One  of  the  principal 
agents  in  this  planting,  the  red  squirrels,  were  all  the 
while  curiously  inspecting  me,  while  I  was  inspecting 
their  plantation.  Some  of  the  little  oaks  had  been 
browsed  by  cows,  which  resorted  to  this  wood  for 
shade. 

After  seven  or  eight  years,  the  hard  woods  evi 
dently  find  such  a  locality  unfavorable  to  their  growth, 
the  pines  being  allowed  to  stand.  As  an  evidence  of 
this,  I  observed  a  diseased  red-maple  twenty-five  feet 
long,  which  had  been  recently  prostrated,  though  it 
was  still  covered  with  green  leaves,  the  only  maple  in 
any  position  in  the  wood. 

But  although  these  oaks  almost  invariably  die  if 
the  pines  are  not  cut  down,  it  is  probable  that  they 
do  better  for  a  few  years  under  their  shelter  than  they 
would  anywhere  else. 

The  very  extensive  and  thorough  experiments  of 
the  English  have  at  length  led  them  to  adopt  a  method 
of  raising  oaks  almost  precisely  like  this,  which  some 
what  earlier  had  been  adopted  by  nature  and  her 


42  THOREAU. 

squirrels  here;  they  have  simply  rediscovered  the 
value  of  pines  as  nurses  for  oaks.  The  English  ex 
perimenters  seem  early  and  generally  to  have  found 
out  the  importance  of  using  trees  of  some  kind  as 
nurse-plants  for  the  young  oaks.  I  quote  from  Lou- 
don  what  he  describes  as  "  the  ultimatum  on  the  sub 
ject  of  planting  and  sheltering  oaks,"  -  —  "  an  abstract 
of  the  practice  adopted  by  the  government  officers  in 
the  national  forests  "  of  England,  prepared  by  Alex 
ander  Milne. 

At  first  some  oaks  had  been  planted  by  themselves, 
and  others  mixed  with  Scotch  pines ;  "  but  in  all 
cases,"  says  Mr.  Milne,  "where  oaks  were  planted 
actually  among  the  pines,  and  surrounded  by  them, 
[though  the  soil  might  be  inferior,]  the  oaks  were 
found  to  be  much  the  best."  "For  several  years  past, 
the  plan  pursued  has  been  to  plant  the  inclosures  with 
Scotch  pines  only,  [a  tree  very  similar  to  our  pitch- 
pine,]  and  when  the  pines  have  got  to  the  height  of 
five  or  six  feet,  then  to  put  in  good  strong  oak  plants 
of  about  four  or  five  years'  growth  among  the  pines, 
—  not  cutting  away  any  pines  at  first,  unless  they 
happen  to  be  so  strong  and  thick  as  to  overshadow 
the  oaks.  In  about  two  .years,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
shred  the  branches  of  the  pines,  to  give  light  and  air 
to  the  oaks,  and  in  about  two  or  three  more  years  to 
begin  gradually  to  remove  the  pines  altogether,  taking 
out  a  certain  number  each  year,  so  that,  at  the  end  of 
twenty  or  twenty-five  years,  not  a  single  Scotch  pine 
shall  be  left;  although,  for  the  first  ten  or  twelve 
years,  the  plantation  may  have  appeared  to  contain 
nothing  else  but  pine.  The  advantage  of  this  mode 
of  planting  has  been  found  to  be  that  the  pines  dry 
and  ameliorate  the  soil,  destroying  the  coarse  grass 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.   43 

and  brambles  which  frequently  choke  and  injure  oaks ; 
and  that  no  mending  over  is  necessary,  as  scarcely  an 
oak  so  planted  is  found  to  fail." 

Thus  much  the  English  planters  have  discovered 
by  patient  experiment,  and,  for  aught  I  know,  they 
have  taken  out  a  patent  for  it ;  but  they  appear  not 
to  have  discovered  that  it  was  discovered  before,  and 
that  they  are  merely  adopting  the  method  of  Nature, 
which  she  long  ago  made  patent  to  all.  She  is  all 
the  while  planting  the  oaks  amid  the  pines  without 
our  knowledge,  and  at  last,  instead  of  government 
officers,  we  send  a  party  of  wood-choppers  to  cut  down 
the  pines,  and  so  rescue  an  oak  forest,  at  which  we 
wonder  as  if  it  had  dropped  from  the  skies. 

As  I  walk  amid  hickories,  even  in  August,  I  hear 
the  sound  of  green  pig-nuts  falling  from  time  to  time, 
cut  off  by  the  chickaree  over  my  head.  In  the  fall, 
I  notice  on  the  ground,  either  within  or  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  oak  woods,  on  all  sides  of  the  town,  stout 
oak  twigs  three  or  four  inches  long,  bearing  half-a- 
dozen  empty  acorn-cups,  which  twigs  have  been  gnawed 
off  by  squirrels,  on  both  sides  of  the  nuts,  in  order  to 
make  them  more  portable.  The  jays  scream  and  the 
red  squirrels  scold  while  you  are  clubbing  and  shak 
ing  the  chestnut-trees,  for  they  are  there  on  the  same 
errand,  and  two  of  a  trade  never  agree.  I  frequently 
see  a  red  or  gray  squirrel  cast  down  a  green  chestnut 
bur,  as  I  am  going  through  the  woods,  and  I  used  to 
think,  sometimes,  that  they  were  cast  at  me.  In  fact, 
they  are  so  busy  about  it,  in  the  midst  of  the  chest 
nut  season,  that  you  cannot  stand  long  in  the  woods 
without  hearing  one  fall.  A  sportsman  told  me  that 
he  had,  the  day  before,  —  that  was  in  the  middle  of 
October,  —  seen  a  green  chestnut  bur  dropt  on  our 


44  THOREA  U. 

great  river  meadow,  fifty  rods  from  the  nearest  wood, 
and  much  farther  from  the  nearest  chestnut-tree,  and 
he  could  not  tell  how  it  came  there.  Occasionally, 
when  chestnutting  in  midwinter,  I  find  thirty  or  forty 
nuts  in  a  pile,  left  in  its  gallery,  just  under  the  leaves, 
by  the  common  wood-mouse. 

But  especially,  in  the  winter,  the  extent  to  which 
this  transportation  and  planting  of  nuts  is  carried  on 
is  made  apparent  by  the  snow.  In  almost  every  wood 
you  will  see  where  the  red  or  gray  squirrels  have  pawed 
down  through  the  snow  in  a  hundred  places,  sometimes 
two  feet  deep,  and  almost  always  directly  to  a  nut  or  a 
pine-cone,  as  directly  as  if  they  had  started  from  it 
and  bored  upward,  —  which  you  and  I  could  not  have 
done.  It  would  be  difficult  for  us  to  find  one  before 
the  snow  falls.  Commonly,  no  doubt,  they  had  de 
posited  them  there  in  the  fall.  You  wonder  if  they 
remember  the  localities,  or  discover  them  by  the  scent. 
The  red  squirrel  commonly  has  its  winter  abode  in  the 
earth  under  a  thicket  of  evergreens,  frequently  under 
a  small  clump  of  evergreens  in  the  midst  of  a  decidu 
ous  wood.  If  there  are  any  nut-trees  which  still  re 
tain  their  nuts,  standing  at  a  distance  without  the 
wood,  their  paths  often  lead  directly  to  and  from 
them.  We,  therefore,  need  not  suppose  an  oak  stand 
ing  here  and  there  in  the  wood  in  order  to  seed  it, 
but  if  a  few  stand  within  twenty  or  thirty  rods  of  it, 
it  is  sufficient. 

I  think  that  I  may  venture  to  say  that  every  white- 
pine  cone  that  falls  to  the  earth  naturally  in  this  town, 
before  opening  and  losing  its  seeds,  and  almost  every 
pitch-pine  cone  that  falls  at  all,  is  cut  off  by  a  squirrel, 
and  they  begin  to  pluck  them  long  before  they  are 
ripe,  so  that  when  the  crop  of  white-pine  cones  is  a 


THE   SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.       45 

small  one,  as  it  commonly  is,  they  cut  off  thus  almost 
every  one  of  these  before  it  fairly  ripens.  I  think, 
moreover,  that  their  design,  if  I  may  so  speak,  in  cut 
ting  them  off  green,  is,  partly,  to  prevent  their  open 
ing  and  losing  their  seeds,  for  these  are  the  ones  for 
which  they  dig  through  the  snow,  and  the  only  white- 
pine  cones  which  contain  anything  then.  I  have 
counted  in  one  heap,  within  a  diameter  of  four  feet, 
the  cores  of  239  pitch-pine  cones  which  had  been  cut 
off  and  stripped  by  the  red  squirrel  the  previous 
winter. 

The  nuts  thus  left  on  the  surface,  or  buried  just 
beneath  it,  are  placed  in  the  most  favorable  circum 
stances  for  germinating.  I  have  sometimes  wondered 
how  those  which  merely  fell  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth  got  planted  ;  but,  by  the  end  of  December,  I 
find  the  chestnut  of  the  same  year  partially  mixed 
with  the  mould,  as  it  were,  under  the  decaying  and 
mouldy  leaves,  where  there  is  all  the  moisture  and 
manure  they  want,  for  the  nuts  fall  first.  In  a  plen 
tiful  year,  a  large  proportion  of  the  nuts  are  thus 
covered  loosely  an  inch  deep,  and  are,  of  course, 
somewhat  concealed  from  squirrels.  One  winter, 
when  the  crop  had  been  abundant,  I  got,  with  the 
aid  of  a  rake,  many  quarts  of  these  nuts  as  late  as 
the  tenth  of  January,  and  though  some  bought  at 
the  store  the  same  day  were  more  than  half  of  them 
mouldy,  I  did  not  find  a  single  mouldy  one  among 
these  which  I  picked  from  under  the  wet  and  mouldy 
leaves,  where  they  had  been  snowed  on  once  or 
twice.  Nature  knows  how  to  pack  them  best.  They 
were  still  plump  and  tender.  Apparently,  they  do 
not  heat  there,  though  wet.  In  the  spring  they  were 
all  sprouting. 


46  THOREA  U. 

Loudon  says  that  "  when  the  nut  [of  the  common 
walnut  of  Europe]  is  to  be  preserved  through  the 
winter  for  the  purpose  of  planting  in  the  following 
spring,  it  should  be  laid  in  a  rot-heap,  as  soon  as 
gathered,  with  the  husk  on,  and  the  heap  should  be 
turned  over  frequently  in  the  course  of  the  winter." 

Here,  again,  he  is  stealing  Nature's  "  thunder." 
How  can  a  poor  mortal  do  otherwise  ?  for  it  is  she 
that  finds  fingers  to  steal  with,  and  the  treasure  to  be 
stolen.  In  the  planting  of  the  seeds  of  most  trees, 
the  best  gardeners  do  no  more  than  follow  Nature, 
though  they  may  not  know  it.  Generally,  both  large 
and  small  ones  are  most  sure  to  germinate,  and  suc 
ceed  best,  when  only  beaten  into  the  earth  with  the 
back  of  a  spade,  and  then  covered  with  leaves  or 
straw.  These  results  to  which  planters  have  arrived 
remind  us  of  the  experience  of  Kane  and  his  com 
panions  at  the  North,  who,  when  learning  to  live  in 
that  climate,  were  surprised  to  find  themselves  steadily 
adopting  the  customs  of  the  natives,  simply  becoming 
Esquimaux.  So,  when  we  experiment  in  planting 
forests,  we  find  ourselves  at  last  doing  as  Nature 
does.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  consult  with  Nature 
in  the  outset  ?  for  she  is  the  most  extensive  and  ex 
perienced  planter  of  us  all,  not  excepting  the  Dukes 
of  Athol.1 

In  short,  they  who  have  not  attended  particularly 
to  this  subject  are  but  little  aware  to  what  an  extent 
quadrupeds  and  birds  are  employed,  especially  in  the 
fall,  in  collecting,  and  so  disseminating  and  planting 
the  seeds  of  trees.  It  is  the  almost  constant  employ 
ment  of  the  squirrels  at  that  season,  and  you  rarely 

1  The  Dukes  of  Athol,  in  Scotland,  were  famous  for  their 
plantations  of  trees. 


THE  SUCCESSION   OF  FOREST   TREES.       47 

meet  with  one  that  has  not  a  nut  in  its  mouth,  or  is 
not  just  going  to  get  one.  One  squirrel-hunter  of 
this  town  told  me  that  he  knew  of  a  walnut-tree  which 
bore  particularly  good  nuts,  but  that  on  going  to 
gather  them  one  fall,  he  found  that  he  had  been  an 
ticipated  by  a  family  of  a  dozen  red  squirrels.  He 
took  out  of  the  tree,  which  was  hollow,  one  bushel 
and  three  pecks  by  measurement,  without  the  husks, 
and  they  supplied  him  and  his  family  for  the  winter. 
It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  instances  of  this  kind. 
How  commonly  in  the  fall  you  see  the  cheek-pouches 
of  the  striped  squirrel  distended  by  a  quantity  of 
nuts !  This  species  gets  its  scientific  name  Tamias, 
or  the  steward,  from  its  habit  of  storing  up  nuts  and 
other  seeds.  Look  under  a  nut-tree  a  month  after  the 
nuts  have  fallen,  and  see  what  proportion  of  sound 
nuts  to  the  abortive  ones  and  shells  you  will  find 
ordinarily.  They  have  been  already  eaten,  or  dis 
persed  far  and  wide.  The  ground  looks  like  the  plat 
form  before  a  grocery,  where  the  gossips  of  the  village 
sit  to  crack  nuts  and  less  savory  jokes.  You  have 
come,  you  would  say,  after  the  feast  was  over,  and 
are  presented  with  the  shells  only. 

Occasionally,  when  threading  the  woods  in  the  fall, 
you  will  hear  a  sound  as  if  some  one  had  broken  a 
twig,  and,  looking  up,  see  a  jay  pecking  at  an  acorn, 
or  you  will  see  a  flock  of  them  at  once  about  it,  in 
the  top  of  an  oak,  and  hear  them  break  them  off. 
They  then  fly  to  a  suitable  limb,  and  placing  the 
acorn  under  one  foot,  hammer  away  at  it  busily,  mak 
ing  a  sound  like  a  woodpecker's  tapping,  looking 
round  from  time  to  time  to  see  if  any  foe  is  approach 
ing,  and  soon  reach  the  meat,  and  nibble  at  it,  hold 
ing  up  their  heads  to  swallow,  while  they  hold  the 


48  THOREA  U. 

remainder  very  firmly  with  their  claws.  Neverthe 
less,  it  often  drops  to  the  ground  before  the  bird  has 
done  with  it.  I  can  confirm  what  William  Bartrarn 
wrote  to  Wilson,  the  ornithologist,  that  "  The  jay  is 
one  of  the  most  useful  agents  in  the  economy  of  na 
ture,  for  disseminating  forest  trees  and  other  nucifer 
ous  and  hard-seeded  vegetables  on  which  they  feed. 
Their  chief  employment  during  the  autumnal  season 
is  foraging  to  supply  their  winter  stores.  In  perform 
ing  this  necessary  duty  they  drop  abundance  of  seed 
in  their  flight  over  fields,  hedges,  and  by  fences,  where 
they  alight  to  deposit  them  in  the  post-holes,  etc.  It 
is  remarkable  what  numbers  of  young  trees  rise  up  in 
fields  and  pastures  after  a  wet  winter  and  spring. 
These  birds  alone  are  capable,  in  a  few  years'  time, 
to  replant  all  the  cleared  lands." 

I  have  noticed  that  squirrels  also  frequently  drop 
their  nuts  in  the  open  land,  which  will  still  further 
account  for  the  oaks  and  walnuts  which  spring  up  in 
pastures,  for,  depend  on  it,  every  new  tree  comes  from 
a  seed.  When  I  examine  the  little  oaks,  one  or  two 
years  old,  in  such  places,  I  invariably  find  the  empty 
acorn  from  which  they  sprung. 

So  far  from  the  seed  having  lain  dormant  in  the 
soil  since  oaks  grew  there  before,  as  many  believe,  it 
is  well  known  that  it  is  difficult  to  preserve  the  vi 
tality  of  acorns  long  enough  to  transport  them  to  Eu 
rope  ;  and  it  is  recommended  in  London's  Arboretum^ 
as  the  safest  course,  to  sprout  them  in  pots  on  the 
voyage.  The  same  authority  states  that  "  very  few 
acorns  of  any  species  will  germinate  after  having  been 
kept  a  year,"  that  beechmast  "  only  retains  its  vital 
properties  one  year,"  and  the  black-walnut  "seldom 
more  than  six  months  after  it  has  ripened."  I  have 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF  FOREST  TREES.   49 

frequently  found  that  in  November,  almost  every 
acorn  left  on  the  ground  had  sprouted  or  decayed. 
What  with  frost,  drought,  moisture,  and  worms,  the 
greater  part  are  soon  destroyed.  Yet  it  is  stated  by 
one  botanical  writer  that  "  acorns  that  have  lain  for 
centuries,  on  being  ploughed  up,  have  soon  vege 
tated." 

Mr.  George  B.  Emerson,  in  his  valuable  Report  on 
the  Trees  and  Shrubs  of  this  State,  says  of  the  pines  : 
"  The  tenacity  of  life  of  the  seeds  is  remarkable. 
They  will  remain  for  many  years  unchanged  in  the 
ground,  protected  by  the  coolness  and  deep  shade  of 
the  forest  above  them.  But  when  the  forest  is  re 
moved,  and  the  warmth  of  the  sun  admitted,  they 
immediately  vegetate."  Since  he  does  not  tell  us  on 
what  observation  his  remark  is  founded,  I  must  doubt 
its  truth.  Besides,  the  experience  of  nurserymen 
makes  it  the  more  questionable. 

The  stories  of  wheat  raised  from  seed  buried  with 
an  ancient  Egyptian,  and  of  raspberries  raised  from 
seed  found  in  the  stomach  of  a  man  in  England,  who 
is  supposed  to  have  died  sixteen  or  seventeen  hun 
dred  years  ago,  are  generally  discredited,  simply  be 
cause  the  evidence  is  not  conclusive. 

Several  men  of  science,  Dr.  Carpenter  among  them, 
have  used  the  statement  that  beach-plums  sprang  up 
in  sand  which  was  dug  up  forty  miles  inland  in  Maine, 
to  prove  that  the  seed  had  lain  there  a  very  long  time, 
and  some  have  inferred  that  the  coast  has  receded  so 
far.  But  it  seems  to  me  necessary  to  their  argument 
to  show,  first,  that  beach-plums  grow  only  on  a  beach. 
They  are  not  uncommon  here,  which  is  about  half  that 
distance  from  the  shore ;  and  I  remember  a  dense 
patch  a  few  miles  north  of  us,  twenty-five  miles  in- 


50  THOREA  U. 

land,  from  which  the  fruit  was  annually  carried  to 
market.  How  much  further  inland  they  grow,  I 
know  not.  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson  speaks  of  finding 
"  beach-plums  "  (perhaps  they  were  this  kind)  more 
than  one  hundred  miles  inland  in  Maine. 

It  chances  that  similar  objections  lie  against  all  the 
more  notorious  instances  of  the  kind  on  record. 

Yet  I  am  prepared  to  believe  that  some  seeds,  espe 
cially  small  ones,  may  retain  their  vitality  for  centu 
ries  under  favorable  circumstances.  In  the  spring  of 
1859,  the  old  Hunt  House,  so  called,  in  this  town, 
whose  chimney  bore  the  date  1703,  was  taken  down. 
This  stood  on  land  which  belonged  to  John  Winthrop, 
the  first  governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  part  of  the 
house  was  evidently  much  older  than  the  above  date, 
and  belonged  to  the  Winthrop  family.  For  many 
years  I  have  ransacked  this  neighborhood  for  plants, 
and  I  consider  myself  familiar  with  its  productions. 
Thinking  of  the  seeds  which  are  said  to  be  sometimes 
dug  up  at  an  unusual  depth  in  the  earth,  and  thus  to 
reproduce  long  extinct  plants,  it  occurred  to  me  last 
fall  that  some  new  or  rare  plants  might  have  sprung 
up  in  the  cellar  of  this  house,  which  had  been  covered 
from  the  light  so  long.  Searching  there  on  the  22d 
of  September,  I  found,  among  other  rank  weeds,  a 
species  of  nettle  (Urtica  urens),  which  I  had  not 
found  before;  dill,  which  I  had  not  seen  growing 
spontaneously ;  the  Jerusalem  oak,  which  I  had  seen 
wild  in  but  one  place;  black  nightshade,  which  is 
quite  rare  hereabouts  ;  and  common  tobacco,  which, 
though  it  was  often  cultivated  here  in  the  last  century, 
has  for  fifty  years  been  an  unknown  plant  in  this 
town,  and  a  few  months  before  this  not  even  I  had 
heard  that  one  man  in  the  north  part  of  the  town 


THE  SUCCESSION  OF   FOREST  TREES.       51 

was  cultivating  a  few  plants  for  his  own  use.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  some  or  all  of  these  plants  sprang  from 
seeds  which  had  long  been  buried  under  or  about  that 
house,  and  that  that  tobacco  is  an  additional  evidence 
that  the  plant  was  formerly  cultivated  here.  The 
cellar  has  been  filled  up  this  year,  and  four  of  those 
plants,  including  the  tobacco,  are  now  again  extinct 
in  that  locality. 

It  is  true,  I  have  shown  that  the  animals  consume 
a  great  part  of  the  seeds  of  trees,  and  so,  at  least, 
effectually  prevent  their  becoming  trees ;  but  in  all 
these  cases,  as  I  have  said,  the  consumer  is  compelled 
to  be  at  the  same  time  the  disperser  and  planter,  and 
this  is  the  tax  which  he  pays  to  nature.  I  think  it  is 
Linnaeus  who  says,  that  while  the  swine  is  rooting 
for  acorns,  he  is  planting  acorns. 

Though  I  do  not  believe  that  a  plant  will  spring  up 
where  no  seed  has  been,  I  have  great  faith  in  a  seed 
—  a,  to  me,  equally  mysterious  origin  for  it.  Con 
vince  me  that  you  have  a  seed  there,  and  I  am  pre 
pared  to  expect  wonders.  I  shall  even  believe  that 
the  millennium  is  at  hand,  and  that  the  reign  of  jus 
tice  is  about  to  commence,  when  the  Patent  Office,  or 
Government,  begins  to  distribute,  and  the  people  to 
plant  the  seeds  of  these  things. 

In  the  spring  of  1857  I  planted  six  seeds  sent  to 
me  from  the  Patent  Office,  and  labelled,  I  think, 
"  Poitrine  jaune  grosse"  l  large  yellow  squash.  Two 
came  up,  and  one  bore  a  squash  which  weighed 
pounds,  the  other  bore  four,  weighing  together 
pounds.  Who  would  have  believed  that  there  was 
310  pounds  of  poitrine  jaune  grosse  in  that  corner  of 
my  garden?  These  seeds  were  the  bait  I  used  to 
1  Pronounced  pwah-treen  zhone  yroce. 


52  THOREAU. 

catch  it,  my  ferrets  which  I  sent  into  its  burrow,  my 
brace  of  terriers  which  unearthed  it.  A  little  myste 
rious  hoeing  and  manuring  was  all  the  abracadabra1 
presto-change  that  I  used,  and,  lo !  true  to  the  label, 
they  found  for  me  310  pounds  of  poitrine  jaune 
grosse  there,  where  it  never  was  known  to  be,  nor 
was  before.  These  talismen  had  perchance  sprung 
from  America  at  first,  and  returned  to  it  with  una 
bated  force.  The  big  squash  took  a  premium  at  your 
fair  that  fall,  and  I  understood  that  the  man  who 
bought  it  intended  to  sell  the  seeds  for  ten  cents  a 
piece.  (Were  they  not  cheap  at  that  ?)  But  I  have 
more  hounds  of  the  same  breed.  I  learn  that  one 
which  I  dispatched  to  a  distant  town,  true  to  its  in 
stincts,  points  to  the  large  yellow  squash  there,  too, 
where  no  hound  ever  found  it  before,  as  its  ancestors 
did  here  and  in  France. 

Other  seeds  I  have  which  will  find  other  things  in 
that  corner  of  my  garden,  in  like  fashion,  almost  any 
fruit  you  wish,  every  year  for  ages,  until  the  crop 
more  than  fills  the  whole  garden.  You  have  but  lit 
tle  more  to  do  than  throw  up  your  cap  for  entertain 
ment  these  American  days.  Perfect  alchemists  I  keep 
who  can  transmute  substances  without  end,  and  thus 
the  corner  of  my  garden  is  an  inexhaustible  treasure- 
chest.  Here  you  can  dig,  not  gold,  but  the  value 
which  gold  merely  represents ;  and  there  is  no  Sign  or 
Blitz 2  about  it.  Yet  farmers'  sons  will  stare  by  the 
hour  to  see  a  juggler  draw  ribbons  from  his  throat, 
though  he  tells  them  it  is  all  deception.  Surely,  men 
love  darkness  rather  than  light. 

1  A  charm  once  used  by  the  superstitious. 

2  A  Swiss  juggler  who  was  a  favorite  performer  in  New  Eng. 
land  between  1850  and  1860.     His  trained  canaries  were  one  of 
the  wonders  of  the  day. 


WILD   APPLES. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   APPLE-TREE. 

IT  is  remarkable  how  closely  the  history  of  the 
Apple-tree  is  connected  with  that  of  man.  The 
geologist  tells  us  that  the  order  of  the  Rosacece, 
which  includes  the  Apple,  also  the  true  Grasses,  and 
the  Lubiatce,  or  Mints,  were  introduced  only  a  short 
time  previous  to  the  appearance  of  man  on  the 
globe. 

It  appears  that  apples  made  a  part  of  the  food  of 
that  unknown  primitive  people  whose  traces  have 
lately  been  found  at  the  bottom  of  the  Swiss  lakes, 
supposed  to  be  older  than  the  foundation  of  Rome, 
so  old  that  they  had  no  metallic  implements.  An 
entire  black  and  shrivelled  Crab-Apple  has  been  re 
covered  from  their  stores. 

Tacitus  says  of  the  ancient  Germans,  that  they 
satisfied  their  hunger  with  wild  apples,  among  other 
things. 

Niebuhr  *  observes  that  "  the  words  for  a  house,  a 
field,  a  plough,  ploughing,  wine,  oil,  milk,  sheep, 
apples,  and  ethers  relating  to  agriculture  and  the  gen 
tler  ways  of  life,  agree  in  Latin  and  Greek,  while 
the  Latin  words  for  all  objects  pertaining  to  war  or 
the  chase  are  utterly  alien  from  the  Greek."  Thus 
1  A  German  historical  critic  of  ancient  life. 


54  THOREAU. 

the  apple-tree  may  be  considered  a  symbol  of  peace 
no  less  than  the  olive. 

The  apple  was  early  so  important,  and  so  generally 
distributed,  that  its  name  traced  to  its  root  in  many 
languages  signifies  fruit  in  general.  M^Xoj/  [Melon], 
in  Greek,  means  an  apple,  also  the  fruit  of  other 
trees,  also  a  sheep  and  any  cattle,  and  finally  riches 
in  general. 

The  apple-tree  has  been  celebrated  by  the  Hebrews, 
Greeks,  Romans,  and  Scandinavians.  Some  have 
thought  that  the  first  human  pair  were  tempted  by 
its  fruit.  Goddesses  are  fabled  to  have  contended 
for  it,  dragons  were  set  to  watch  it,  and  heroes  were 
employed  to  pluck  it.1 

The  tree  is  mentioned  in  at  least  three  places  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  its  fruit  in  two  or  three  more. 
Solomon  sings,  "  As  the  apple-tree  among  the  trees 
of  the  wood,  so  is  my  beloved  among  the  sons."  And 
again,  "Stay  me  with  flagons,  comfort  me  with  ap 
ples."  The  noblest  part  of  man's  noblest  feature  is 
named  from  this  fruit,  "  the  apple  of  the  eye." 

The  apple-tree  is  also  mentioned  by  Homer  and 
Herodotus.  Ulysses  saw  in  the  glorious  garden  of 
Alcinoiis  "pears  and  pomegranates  and  apple-trees 
bearing  beautiful  fruit."  And  according  to  Homer, 
apples  were  among  the  fruits  which  Tantalus  could 
not  pluck,  the  wind  ever  blowing  their  boughs  away 
from  him.  Theophrastus  knew  and  described  the 
apple-tree  as  a  botanist. 

According  to  the  Prose  Edda,2  "  Iduna  keeps  in  a 
box  the  apples  which  the  gods,  when  they  feel  old 

1  The  Greek  myths  especially  referred  to  are  The  Choice  of 
Paris  and  The  Apples  of  the  Hesperides. 

2  The  stories  of  the  early  Scandinavians. 


THE   HISTORY  OF   THE   APPLE-TREE.       55 

ag^  approaching,  have  only  to  taste  of  to  become 
young  again.  It  is  in  this  manner  that  they  will  be 
kept  in  renovated  youth  until  Ragnarok  "  (or  the  de 
struction  of  the  gods). 

I  learn  from  Loudon 1  that  "  the  ancient  Welsh 
bards  were  rewarded  for  excelling  in  song  by  the 
token  of  the  apple-spray  ; "  and  "  in  the  Highlands 
of  Scotland  the  apple-tree  is  the  badge  of  the  clan 
Lamont." 

The  apple-tree  belongs  chiefly  to  the  northern  tem 
perate  zone.  Loudon  says,  that  "  it  grows  spontane 
ously  in  every  part  of  Europe  except  the  frigid  zone, 
and  throughout  Western  Asia,  China,  and  Japan." 
We  have  also  two  or  three  varieties  of  the  apple  in 
digenous  in  North  America.  The  cultivated  apple- 
tree  was  first  introduced  into  this  country  by  the 
earliest  settlers,  and  is  thought  to  do  as  well  or  bet 
ter  here  than  anywhere  else.  Probably  some  of  the 
varieties  which  are  now  cultivated  were  first  intro 
duced  into  Britain  by  the  Romans. 

Pliny,  adopting  the  distinction  of  Theophiastus, 
says,  "  Of  trees  there  are  some  which  are  altogether 
wild,  some  more  civilized."  Theophrastus  includes 
the  apple  among  the  last;  and,  indeed,  it  is  in  this 
sense  the  most  civilized  of  all  trees.  It  is  as  harm 
less  as  a  dove,  as  beautiful  as  a  rose,  and  as  valua 
ble  as  flocks  and  herds.  It  has  been  longer  culti 
vated  than  any  other,  and  so  is  more  humanized  ;  and 
who  knows  but,  like  the  dog,  it  will  at  length  be  no 
longer  traceable  to  its  wild  original  ?  It  migrates 
with  man,  like  the  dog  and  horse  and  cow:  first, 
perchance,  from  Greece  to  Italy,  thence  to  England, 

1  An  English  authority  on  (:ne  culture  of  orchards  and  gar 
dens. 


56  THOREA  U. 

thence  to  America;  and  our  Western  emigrant  is 
still  marching  steadily  toward  the  setting  sun  with 
the  seeds  of  the  apple  in  his  pocket,  or  perhaps  a  few 
young  trees  strapped  to  his  load.  At  least  a  million 
apple-trees  are  thus  set  farther  westward  this  year 
than  any  cultivated  ones  grew  last  year.  Consider 
how  the  Blossom- Week,  like  the  Sabbath,  is  thus 
annually  spreading  over  the  prairies ;  for  when  man 
migrates  he  carries  with  him  not  only  his  birds, 
quadrupeds,  insects,  vegetables,  and  his  very  sward, 
but  his  orchard  also. 

The  leaves  and  tender  twigs  are  an  agreeable  food 
to  many  domestic  animals,  as  the  cow,  horse,  sheep, 
and  goat ;  and  the  fruit  is  sought  after  by  the  first, 
as  well  as  by  the  hog.  Thus  there  appears  to  have 
existed  a  natural  alliance  between  these  animals  and 
this  tree  from  the  first.  "  The  fruit  of  the  Crab  in 
the  forests  of  France  "  is  said  to  be  "  a  great  resource 
for  the  wild-boar." 

Not  only  the  Indian,  but  many  indigenous  insects, 
birds,  and  quadrupeds,  welcomed  the  apple-tree  to 
these  shores.  The  tent-caterpillar  saddled  her  eggs 
on  the  very  first  twig  that  was  formed,  and  it  has 
since  shared  her  affections  with  the  wild  cherry ;  and 
the  canker-worm  also  in  a  measure  abandoned  the 
elm  to  feed  on  it.  As  it  grew  apace,  the  bluebird, 
robin,  cherry-bird,  king-bird,  and  many  more,  came 
with  haste  and  built  their  nests  and  warbled  in  its 
boughs,  and  so  became  orchard-birds,  and  multiplied 
more  than  ever.  It  was  an  era  in  the  history  of  their 
race.  The  downy  woodpecker  found  such  a  savory 
morsel  under  its  bark,  that  he  perforated  it  in  a  ring 
quite  round  the  tree  before  he  left  it,  —  a  thing 
which  he  had  never  done  before,  to  my  knowledge. 


THE   HISTORY   OF    THE  APPLE-TREE.       57 

It  did  not  take  the  partridge  long  to  find  out  how 
sweet  its  buds  were,  and  every  winter  eve  she  flew,  and 
still  flies,  from  the  wood,  to  pluck  them,  much  to  the 
farmer's  sorrow.  The  rabbit,  too,  was  not  slow  to 
learn  the  taste  of  its  twigs  and  bark ;  and  when  the 
fruit  was  ripe,  the  squirrel  half-rolled,  half-carried  it 
to  his  hole ;  and  even  the  musquash  crept  up  the 
bank  from  the  brook  at  evening,  and  greedily  de 
voured  it,  until  he  had  worn  a  path  in  the  grass 
there ;  and  when  it  was  frozen  and  thawed,  the  crow 
and  the  jay  were  glad  to  taste  it  occasionally.  The 
owl  crept  into  the  first  apple-tree  that  became  hollow, 
and  fairly  hooted  with  delight,  finding  it  just  the 
place  for  him ;  so,  settling  down  into  it,  he  has  re 
mained  there  ever  since. 

My  theme  being  the  Wild  Apple,  I  will  merely 
glance  at  some  of  the  seasons  in  the  annual  growth 
of  the  cultivated  apple,  and  pass  on  to  my  special 
province. 

The  flowers  of  the  apple  are  perhaps  the  most  beau 
tiful  of  any  tree,  so  copious  and  so  delicious  to  both 
sight  and  scent.  The  walker  is  frequently  tempted  to 
turn  and  linger  near  some  more  than  usually  hand 
some  one,  whose  blossoms  are  two  thirds  expanded. 
How  superior  it  is  in  these  respects  to  the  pear,  whose 
blossoms  are  neither  colored  nor  fragrant ! 

By  the  middle  of  July,  green  apples  are  so  large  as 
to  remind  us  of  coddling,  and  of  the  autumn.  The 
sward  is  commonly  strewed  with  little  ones  which  fall 
still-born,  as  it  were,  —  Nature  thus  thinning  them  for 
us.  The  Roman  writer  Palladius  said  :  "  If  apples 
are  inclined  to  fall  before  their  time,  a  stone  placed  in 
a  split  root  will  retain  them."  Some  such  notion,  still 
surviving,  may  account  for  some  of  the  stones  which 


58  THOREA  U. 

we  see  placed  to  be  overgrown  in  the  forks  of  trees, 
They  have  a  saying  in  Suffolk,  England,  — 

"  At  Michaelmas  time,  or  a  little  before, 
Half  an  apple  goes  to  the  core." 

Early  apples  begin  to  be  ripe  about  the  first  of 
August ;  but  I  think  that  none  of  them  are  so  good 
to  eat  as  some  to  smell.  One  is  worth  more  to  scent 
your  handkerchief  with  than  any  perfume  which  they 
sell  in  the  shops.  The  fragrance  of  some  fruits  is  not 
to  be  forgotten,  along  with  that  of  flowers.  Some 
gnarly  apple  which  I  pick  up  in  the  road  reminds  me 
by  its  fragrance  of  all  the  wealth  of  Pomona,1  —  car 
rying  me  forward  to  those  days  when  they  will  be 
collected  in  golden  and  ruddy  heaps  in  the  orchards 
and  about  the  cider-mills. 

A  week  or  two  later,  as  you  are  going  by  orchards 
or  gardens,  especially  in  the  evenings,  you  pass  through 
a  little  region  possessed  by  the  fragrance  of  ripe  ap 
ples,  and  thus  enjoy  them  without  price,  and  without 
robbing  anybody. 

There  is  thus  about  all  natural  products  a  certain 
^/" 

volatile  and  ethereal  quality  which  represents  their 

highest  value,  and  which  cannot  be  vulgarized,  or 
bought  and  sold.  No  mortal  has  ever  enjoyed  the 
perfect  flavor  of  any  fruit,  and  only  the  godlike  among 
men  begin  to  taste  its  ambrosial  qualities.  For  nectar 
and  ambrosia  are  only  those  fine  flavors  of  every 
earthly  fruit  which  our  coarse  palates  fail  to  perceive, 
• —  just  as  we  occupy  the  heaven  of  the  gods  without 
knowing  it.  When  I  see  a  particularly  mean  man  car 
rying  a  load  of  fair  and  fragrant  early  apples  to  market, 
I  seem  to  see  a  contest  going  on  between  him  and  his 
horse,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  apples  on  the  other, 
1  The  Roman  goddess  of  fruit  and  fruit-trees. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   APPLE-TREE.      59 

and,  to  my  mind,  the  apples  always  gain  it.  Pliny 
says  that  apples  are  the  heaviest  of  all  things,  and 
that  the  oxen  begin  to  sweat  at  the  mere  sight  of  a 
load  of  them.  Our  driver  begins  to  lose  his  load  the 
moment  he  tries  to  transport  them  to  where  they  do 
not  belong,  that  is,  to  any  but  the  most  beautiful 
Though  he  gets  out  from  time  to  time,  and  feels  of 
them,  and  thinks  they  are  all  there,  I  see  the  stream 
of  their  evanescent  and  celestial  qualities  going  to 
heaven  from  his  cart,  while  the  pulp  and  skin  and 
core  only  are  going  to  market.  They  are  not  apples, 
but  pomace.  Are  not  these  still  Iduna's  apples,  the  ; 
taste  of  which  keeps  the  gods  forever  young?  and 
think  you  that  they  will  let  Loki  or  Thjassi  carry 
them  off  to  Jotunheim,1  while  they  grow  wrinkled  and 
gray  ?  No,  for  Ragnarok,  or  the  destruction  of  the 
gods,  is  not  yet. 

There  is  another  thinning  of  the  fruit,  commonly 
near  the  end  of  August  or  in  September,  when  the 
ground  is  strewn  with  windfalls ;  and  this  happens 
especially  when  high  winds  occur  after  rain.  In  some 
orchards  you  may  see  fully  three  quarters  of  the  whole 
crop  on  the  ground,  lying  in  a  circular  form  beneath 
the  trees,  yet  hard  and  green,  —  or,  if  it  is  a  hillside, 
rolled  far  down  the  hill.  However,  it  is  an  ill  wind 
that  blows  nobody  any  good.  All  the  country  over, 
people  are  busy  picking  up  the  windfalls,  and  this 
will  make  them  cheap  for  early  apple-pies. 

In  October,  the  leaves  falling,  the  apples  are  more 
distinct  on  the  trees.  I  saw  one  year  in  a  neighboring 
town  some  trees  fuller  of  fruit  than  I  remember  to 

1  Jotunheim  (  Ye(r}f-un-hime)  in  Scandinavian  mythology  was 
the  home  of  the  Jb'tun  or  Giants.  Loki  was  a  descendant  of  the 
gods,  and  a  companion  of  the  Giants.  Thjassi  (Tee-assy}  was  a 
giant. 


60  THOREA  U> 

have  ever  seen  before,  small  yellow  apples  hanging 
over  the  road.  The  branches  were  gracefully  droop 
ing  with  their  weight,  like  a  barberry-bush,  so  that 
the  whole  tree  acquired  a  new  character.  Even  the 
topmost  branches,  instead  of  standing  erect,  spread 
and  drooped  in  all  directions ;  and  there  were  so  many 
poles  supporting  the  lower  ones,  that  they  looked  like 
pictures  of  banian-trees.  As  an  old  English  manu 
script  says,  "The  mo  appelen  the  tree  bereth  the  more 
sche  boweth  to  the  folk." 

Surely  the  apple  is  the  noblest  of  fruits.  Let  the 
most  beautiful  or  the  swiftest  have  it.  That  should 
^be  the  "  going  "  price  of  apples. 

Between  the  fifth  and  twentieth  of  October  I  see 
the  barrels  lie  under  the  trees.  And  perhaps  I  talk 
with  one  who  is  selecting  some  choice  barrels  to  fulfil 
an  order.  He  turns  a  specked  one  over  many  times 
before  he  leaves  it  out.  If  I  were  to  tell  what  is 
passing  in  my  mind,  I  should  say  that  every  one  was 
specked  which  he  had  handled;  for  he  rubs  off  all 
the  bloom,  and  those  fugacious  ethereal  qualities  leave 
it.  Cool  evenings  prompt  the  farmers  to  make  haste, 
and  at  length  I  see  only  the  ladders  here  and  there 
left  leaning  against  the  trees. 

It  would  be  well  if  we  accepted  these  gifts  with 
more  joy  and  gratitude,  and  did  not  think  it  enough 
simply  to  put  a  fresh  load  of  compost  about  the  tree. 
Some  old  English  customs  are  suggestive  at  least.  I 
find  them  described  chiefly  in  Brand's  "  Popular  An 
tiquities."  It  appears  that  "on  Christmas  eve  the 
farmers  and  their  men  in  Devonshire  take  a  large 
bowl  of  cider,  with  a  toast  in  it,  and  carrying  it  in 
state  to  the  orchard,  they  salute  the  apple-trees  with 
much  ceremony,  in  order  to  make  them  bear  well  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF   THE  APPLE-TREE.      61 

next  season."  This  salutation  consists  in  "  throwing 
some  of  the  cider  about  the  roots  of  the  tree,  placing 
bits  of  the  toast  on  the  branches,"  and  then,  "  encir 
cling  one  of  the  best  bearing  trees  in  the  orchard, 
they  drink  the  following  toast  three  several  times :  — 

'Here  's  to  thee,  old  apple-tree, 

Whence  tliou  mayst  bud,  aud  whence  thou  mayst  blow, 
And  whence  thou  mayst  bear  apples  enow  ! 

Hats-full !  caps-full ! 

Bushel,  bushel,  sacks-full  ! 

And  my  pockets  full,  too  !     Hurra  ! '  ' 

Also  what  was  called  "  apple-howling  "  used  to  be 
practised  in  various  counties  of  England  on  New- 
Year's  eve.  A  troop  of  boys  visited  the  different 
orchards,  and,  encircling  the  apple-trees,  repeated  the 
following  words :  — 

"  Stand  fast,  root !  bear  well,  top  ! 
Pray  God  send  us  a  good  howling  crop  : 
Every  twig,  apples  big  ; 
Every  bow,  apples  enow  !  " 

"  They  then  shout  in  chorus,  one  of  the  boys  accom 
panying  them  on  a  cow's  horn.  During  this  cere 
mony  they  rap  the  trees  with  their  sticks."  This  is 
called  "  wassailing  "  the  trees,  and  is  thought  by  some 
to  be  "  a  relic  of  the  heathen  sacrifice  to  Pomona." 

Herrick  sings,  — 

"  Wassaile  the  trees  that  they  may  beare 
You  many  a  plum  and  many  a  peare  ; 
For  more  or  less  fruits  they  will  bring 
As  you  so  give  them  wassailing." 

Our  poets  have  as  yet  a  better  right  to  sing  of  cider 
than  of  wine  ;  but  it  behooves  them  to  sing  betier  than 
English  Phillips  did,  else  they  will  do  no  credit  to 
their  Muse. 


62  THOREAU. 

THE  WILD  APPLE. 

So  much  for  the  more  civilized  apple-trees  (urba- 
niores,  as  Pliny  calls  them).  I  love  better  to  go 
through  the  old  orchards  of  ungrafted  apple-trees,  at 
whatever  season  of  the  year,  —  so  irregularly  planted : 
sometimes  two  trees  standing  close  together ;  and  the 
rows  so  devious  that  you  would  think  that  they  not 
only  had  grown  while  the  owner  was  sleeping,  but  had 
been  set  out  by  him  in  a  somnambulic  state.  The 
rows  of  grafted  fruit  will  never  tempt  me  to  wander 
amid  them  like  these.  But  I  now,  alas,  speak  rather 
from  memory  than  from  any  recent  experience,  such 
ravages  have  been  made  ! 

Some  soils,  like  a  rocky  tract  called  the  Easter- 
brooks  Country  in  my  neighborhood,  are  so  suited  to 
the  apple,  that  it  will  grow  faster  in  them  without  any 
care,  or  if  only  the  ground  is  broken  up  once  a  year, 
than  it  will  in  many  places  with  any  amount  of  care. 
The  owners  of  this  tract  allow  that  the  soil  is  excel 
lent  for  fruit,  but  they  say  that  it  is  so  rocky  that 
they  have  not  patience  to  plough  it,  and  that,  to 
gether  with  the  distance,  is  the  reason  why  it  is  not 
cultivated.  There  are,  or  were  recently,  extensive  or 
chards  there  standing  without  order.  Nay,  they  spring 
up  wild  and  bear  well  there  in  the  midst  of  pines, 
birches,  maples,  and  oaks.  I  am  often  surprised  to 
see  rising  amid  these  trees  the  rounded  tops  of  apple- 
trees  glowing  with  red  or  yellow  fruit,  in  harmony 
with  the  autumnal  tints  of  the  forest. 

Going  up  the  side  of  a  cliff  about  the  first  of  No 
vember,  I  saw  a  vigorous  young  apple-tree,  which, 
planted  by  birds  or  cows,  had  shot  up  amid  the  rocks 
and  open  woods  there,  and  had  now  much  fruit  on  it, 


THE   WILD  APPLE.  63 

Uninjured  by  the  frosts,  when  all  cultivated  apples  were 
gathered.  It  was  a  rank  wild  growth,  with  many  green 
leaves  on  it  still,  and  made  an  impression  of  thorni- 
ness.  The  fruit  was  hard  and  green,  but  looked  as  if 
it  would  be  palatable  in  the  winter.  Some  was  dang 
ling  on  the  twigs,  but  more  half-buried  in  the  wet 
leaves  under  the  tree,  or  rolled  far  down  the  hill  amid 
the  rocks.  The  owner  knows  nothing  of  it.  The 
day  was  not  observed  when  it  first  blossomed,  nor 
when  it  first  bore  fruit,  unless  by  the  chickadee. 
There  was  no  dancing  on  the  green  beneath  it  in  its 
honor,  and  now  there  is  no  hand  to  pluck  its  fruit,  — 
which  is  only  gnawed  by  squirrels,  as  I  perceive.  It 
has  done  double  duty,  —  not  only  borne  this  crop,  but 
each  twig  has  grown  a  foot  into  the  air.  And  this  is 
such  fruit !  bigger  than  many  berries,  we  must  admit, 
and  carried  home  will  be  sound  and  palatable  next 
spring.  What  care  I  for  Iduna's  apples  so  long  as  I 
can  get  these  ? 

When  I  go  by  this  shrub  thus  late  and  hardy,  and 
see  its  dangling  fruit,  I  respect  the  tree,  and  I  am 
grateful  for  Nature's  bounty,  even  though  I  cannot 
eat  it.  Here  on  this  rugged  and  woody  hillside  has 
grown  an  apple-tree,  not  planted  by  man,  no  relic  of 
a  former  orchard,  but  a  natural  growth,  like  the  pines 
and  oaks.  Most  fruits  which  we  prize  and  use  de 
pend  entirely  on  our  care.  Corn  and  grain,  potatoes, 
peaches,  melons,  etc.,  depend  altogether  on  our  plant 
ing  ;  but  the  apple  emulates  man's  independence  and 
enterprise.  It  is  not  simply  carried,  as  I  have  said, 
but,  like  him,  to  some  extent,  it  has  migrated  to  this 
New  World,  and  is  even,  here  and  there,  making  its 
way  amid  the  aboriginal  trees  ;  just  as  the  ox  and 
dog  and  horse  sometimes  run  wild  and  maintain  them 
selves. 


64  THOREA  U. 

Even  the  sourest  and  crabbedest  apple,  growing  in 
the  most  unfavorable  position,  suggests  such  thoughts 
as  these,  it  is  so  noble  a  fruit. 

THE    CKAB. 

Nevertheless,  our  wild  apple  is  wild  only  like  myself, 
perchance,  who  belong  not  to  the  aboriginal  race  here, 
but  have  strayed  into  the  woods  from  the  cultivated 
stock.  Wilder  still,  as  I  have  said,  there  grows  else 
where  in  this  country  a  native  and  aboriginal  Crab- 
Apple,  "  whose  nature  has  not  yet  been  modified  by 
cultivation."  It  is  found  from  Western  New  York  to 
Minnesota  and  southward.  Michaux 1  says  that  its 
ordinary  height  "  is  fifteen  or  eighteen  feet,  but  it  is 
sometimes  found  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  high,"  and 
that  the  large  ones  "  exactly  resemble  the  common 
apple-tree."  "  The  flowers  are  white  mingled  with 
rose-color,  and  are  collected  in  corymbs."  They  are 
remarkable  for  their  delicious  odor.  The  fruit,  ac 
cording  to  him,  is  about  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diame 
ter,  and  is  intensely  acid.  Yet  they  make  fine  sweet 
meats,  and  also  cider  of  them.  He  concludes,  that 
"  if,  on  being  cultivated,  it  does  not  yield  new  and 
palatable  varieties,  it  will  at  least  be  celebrated  for 
the  beauty  of  its  flowers,  and  for  the  sweetness  of  its 
perfume." 

I  never  saw  the  Crab-Apple  till  May,  1861.  I  had 
heard  of  it  through  Michaux,  but  more  modern  bot 
anists,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  not  treated  it  as  of 
any  peculiar  importance.  Thus  it  was  a  half-fabu 
lous  tree  to  me.  I  contemplated  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
"  Glades,"  a  portion  of  Pennsylvania,  where  it  was 
said  to  grow  to  perfection.  I  thought  of  sending  to 
1  Pronounced  mee-sho',  a  French  botanist  and  traveller. 


HOW   THE    WILD  APPLE   GROWS.  65 

a  nursery  for  it,  but  doubted  if  they  had  it,  or  would 
distinguish  it  from  European  varieties.  At  last  I  had 
occasion  to  go  to  Minnesota,  and  on  entering  Michi 
gan  I  began  to  notice  from  the  cars  a  tree  with  hand 
some  rose-colored  flowers.  At  first  I  thought  it  some 
variety  of  thorn  ;  but  it  was  not  long  before  the  truth 
flashed  on  me,  that  this  was  my  long-sought  Crab- 
Apple.  It  was  the  prevailing  flowering  shrub  or  tree 
to  be  seen  from  the  cars  at  that  season  of  the  year,  — 
about  the  middle  of  May.  But  the  cars  never  stopped 
before  one,  and  so  I  was  launched  on  the  bosom  of 
the  Mississippi  without  having  touched  one,  experienc 
ing  the  fate  of  Tantalus.  On  arriving  at  St.  An 
thony's  Falls,  I  was  sorry  to  be  told  that  I  was  too 
far  north  for  the  Crab-Apple.  Nevertheless  I  suc 
ceeded  in  finding  it  about  eight  miles  west  of  the 
Falls ;  touched  it  and  smelled  it,  and  secured  a  linger 
ing  corymb  of  flowers  for  my  herbarium.  This  must 
have  been  near  its  northern  limit. 

HOW  THE  WILD  APPLE  GROWS. 

But  though  the.se  are  indigenous,  like  the  Indians, 
I  doubt  whether  they  are  any  hardier  than  those  back 
woodsmen  among  the  apple-trees,  which,  though  de 
scended  from  cultivated  stocks,  plant  themselves  in 
distant  fields  and  forests,  where  the  soil  is  favorable 
to  them.  I  know  of  no  trees  which  have  more  dif 
ficulties  to  contend  with,  and  which  more  sturdily 
resist  their  foes.  These  are  the  ones  whose  story  we 
have  to  tell.  It  oftentimes  reads  thus  :  — 

Near  the  beginning  of  May.  we  notice  little  thickets 
of  apple-trees  just  springing  up  in  the  pastures  where 
cattle  have  been,  —  as  the  rocky  ones  of  our  Easter- 
brooks  Country,  or  the  top  of  Nobscot  Hill  in  Sud- 


66  THOREAU. 

bury.  One  or  two  of  these  perhaps  survive  the 
drought  and  other  accidents,  —  their  very  birthplace 
defending  them  against  the  encroaching  grass  and 
some  other  dangers,  at  first. 

In  two  years'  time  't  had  thus 

Reached  the  level  of  the  rocks, 
Admired  the  stretching  world, 

Nor  feared  the  wandering  flocks. 

But  at  this  tender  age 

Its  sufferings  began  : 
There  came  a  browsing  ox 

And  cut  it  down  a  span. 

This  time,  perhaps,  the  ox  does  not  notice  it  amid  the 
grass ;  but  the  next  year,  when  it  has  grown  more 
stout,  he  recognizes  it  for  a  fellow-emigrant  from  the 
old  country,  the  flavor  of  whose  leaves  and  twigs  he 
well  knows  ;  and  though  at  first  he  pauses  to  welcome 
it,  and  express  his  surprise,  and  gets  for  answer,  "  The 
same  cause  that  brought  you  here  brought  me,"  he 
nevertheless  browses  it  again,  reflecting,  it  may  be, 
that  he  has  some  title  to  it. 

Thus  cut  down  annually,  it  does  not  despair ;  but, 
putting  forth  two  short  twigs  for  every  one  cut  off,  it 
spreads  out  low  along  the  ground  in  the  hollows  or 
between  the  rocks,  growing  more  stout  and  scrubby, 
until  it  forms,  not  a  tree  as  yet,  but  a  little  pyramidal, 
stiff,  twiggy  mass,  almost  as  solid  and  impenetrable 
as  a  rock.  Some  of  the  densest  and  most  impene 
trable  clumps  of  bushes  that  I  have  ever  seen,  as  well 
on  account  of  the  closeness  and  stubbornness  of  their 
branches  as  of  their  thorns,  have  been  these  wild-apple 
scrubs.  They  are  more  like  the  scrubby  fir  and  black 
spruce  on  which  you  stand,  and  sometimes  walk,  on 
the  tops  of  mountains,  where  cold  is  the  demon  they 


HOW  THE    WILD  APPLE   GROWS.  G7 

contend  with,  than  anything  else.  No  wonder  they 
are  prompted  to  grow  thorns  at  last,  to  defend  them 
selves  against  such  foes.  In  their  thorniness,  how 
ever,  there  is  no  malice,  only  some  malic  acid. 

The  rocky  pastures  of  the  tract  I  have  referred  to 
—  for  they  maintain  their  ground  best  in  a  rocky 
field  —  are  thickly  sprinkled  with  these  little  tufts, 
reminding  you  often  of  some  rigid  gray  mosses  or 
lichens,  and  you  see  thousands  of  little  trees  just 
springing  up  between  them,  with  the  seed  still  at 
tached  to  them. 

Being  regularly  clipped  all  around  each  year  by  the 
cows,  as  a  hedge  with  shears,  they  are  often  of  a  per 
fect  conical  or  pyramidal  form,  from  one  to  four  feet 
high,  and  more  or  less  sharp,  as  if  trimmed  by  the 
gardener's  art.  In  the  pastures  on  Nobscot  Hill  and 
its  spurs  they  make  fine  dark  shadows  when  the  sun  is 
low.  They  are  also  an  excellent  covert  from  hawks 
for  many  small  birds  that  roost  and  build  in  them. 
Whole  flocks  perch  in  them  at  night,  and  I  have  seen 
three  robins'  nests  in  one  which  was  six  feet  in  di 
ameter. 

No  doubt  many  of  these  are  already  old  trees,  if 
you  reckon  from  the  day  they  were  planted,  but  in 
fants  still  when  you  consider  their  development  and 
the  long  life  before  them.  I  counted  the  annual  rings 
of  some  which  were  just  one  foot  high,  and  as  wide  as 
high,  and  found  that  they  were  about  twelve  years 
old,  but  quite  sound  and  thrifty  !  They  were  so  low 
that  they  were  unnoticed  by  the  walker,  while  many 
of  their  contemporaries  from  the  nurseries  were  al 
ready  bearing  considerable  crops.  But  what  you  gain 
in  time  is  perhaps  in  this  case,  too,  lost  in  power,  — 
that  is,  in  the  vigor  of  the  tree.  This  is  their  pyram 
idal  state. 


68  THOREA  U. 

The  cows  continue  to  browse  them  thus  for  twenty 
years  or  more,  keeping  them  down  and  compelling 
them  to  spread,  until  at  last  they  are  so  broad  that 
they  become  their  own  fence,  when  some  interior 
shoot,  which  their  foes  cannot  reach,  darts  upward 
with  joy :  for  it  has  not  forgotten  its  high  calling, 
and  bears  its  own  peculiar  fruit  in  triumph. 

Such  are  the  tactics  by  which  it  finally  defeats  its 
bovine  foes.  Now,  if  you  have  watched  the  progress 
of  a  particular  shrub,  you  will  see  that  it  is  no  longer 
a  simple  pyramid  or  cone,  but  out  of  its  apex  there 
rises  a  sprig  or  two,  growing  more  lustily  perchance 
than  an  orchard-tree,  since  the  plant  now  devotes  the 
whole  of  its  repressed  energy  to  these  upright  parts. 
In  a  short  time  these  become  a  small  tree,  an  inverted 
pyramid  resting  on  the  apex  of  the  other,  so  that  the 
whole  has  now  the  form  of  a  vast  hour-glass.  The 
spreading  bottom,  having  served  its  purpose,  finally 
disappears,  and  the  generous  tree  permits  the  now 
harmless  cows  to  come  in  and  stand  in  its  shade,  and 
rub  against  and  redden  its  trunk,  which  has  grown  in 
spite  of  them,  and  even  to  taste  a  part  of  its  fruit, 
and  so  disperse  the  seed. 

Thus  the  cows  create  their  own  shade  and  food ; 
and  the  tree,  its  hour-glass  being  inverted,  lives  a 
second  life,  as  it  were. 

It  is  an  important  question  with  some  nowadays, 
whether  you  should  trim  young  apple-trees  as  high  as 
your  nose  or  as  high  as  your  eyes.  The  ox  trims  them 
up  as  high  as  he  can  reach,  and  that  is  about  the 
right  height,  I  think. 

In  spite  of  wandering  kine  and  other  adverse  cir. 
cumstances,  that  despised  shrub,  valued  only  by  small 
birds  as  a  covert  and  shelter  from  hawks,  has  its  blos« 


HOW   THE    WILD  APPLE  GROWS.  69 

som-week  at  last,  and  in  course  of  time  its  harvest, 
sincere,  though  small. 

By  the  end  of  some  October,  when  its  leaves  have 
fallen,  I  frequently  see  such  a  central  sprig,  whose 
progress  I  have  watched,  when  I  thought  it  had  for 
gotten  its  destiny,  as  I  had,  bearing  its  first  crop  of 
small  green  or  yellow  or  rosy  fruit,  which  the  cows 
cannot  get  at  over  the  bushy  and  thorny  hedge  which 
surrounds  it,  and  I  make  haste  to  taste  the  new  and 
undescribed  variety.  We  have  all  heard  of  the  nu 
merous  varieties  of  fruit  invented  by  Van  Mons  1  and 
Knight.2  This  is  the  system  of  Van  Cow,  and  she 
has  invented  far  more  and  more  memorable  varieties 
than  both  of  them. 

Through  what  hardships  it  may  attain  to  bear  a 
sweet  fruit !  Though  somewhat  small,  it  may  prove 
equal,  if  not  superior,  in  flavor  to  that  which  has 
grown  in  a  garden,  —  will  perchance  be  all  the  sweeter 
and  more  palatable  for  the  very  difficulties  it  has  had 
to  contend  with.  Who  knows  but  this  chance  wild 
fruit,  planted  by  a  cow  or  a  bird  on  some  remote  and 
rocky  hillside,  where  it  is  as  yet  unobserved  by  man, 
may  be  the  choicest  of  all  its  kind,  and  foreign  poten 
tates  shall  hear  of  it,  and  royal  societies  seek  to  propa 
gate  it,  though  the  virtues  of  the  perhaps  truly  crabbed 
owner  of  the  soil  may  never  be  heard  of,  —  at  least, 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  village  ?  It  was  thus  the 
Porter  and  the  Baldwin  grew. 

Every  wild -apple  shrub  excites  our  expectation 
thus,  somewhat  as  every  wild  child.  It  is,  perhaps,  a 
prince  in  disguise.  What  a  lesson  to  man  !  So  are 

human  beings,  referred  to  the  highest  standard,  the 

\ 

1  A  Belgian  chemist  and  horticulturist. 

2  An  English  vegetable  physiologist. 


70  THOREA  U. 

celestial  fruit  which  they  suggest  and  aspire  to  bear, 
browsed  on  by  fate ;  and  only  the  most  persistent  and 
strongest  genius  defends  itself  and  prevails,  sends  a 
tender  scion  upward  at  last,  and  drops  its  perfect  fruit 
on  the  ungrateful  earth.  Poets  and  philosophers  and 
statesmen  thus  spring  up  in  the  country  pastures,  and 
outlast  the  hosts  of  unoriginal  men. 

Such  is  always  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  The 
celestial  fruits,  the  golden  apples  of  the  Hesperides, 
are  ever  guarded  by  a  hundred-headed  dragon  which 
never  sleeps,  so  that  it  is  an  herculean  labor  to  pluck 
them. 

This  is  one  and  the  most  remarkable  way  in  which 
the  wild  apple  is  propagated ;  but  commonly  it  springs 
up  at  wide  intervals  in  woods  and  swamps,  and  by  the 
sides  of  roads,  as  the  soil  may  suit  it,  and  grows  with 
comparative  rapidity.  Those  which  grow  in  dense 
woods  are  very  tall  and  slender.  I  frequently  pluck 
from  these  trees  a  perfectly  mild  and  tamed  fruit. 
As  Palladius  says,  "  And  the  ground  is  strewn  with 
the  fruit  of  an  unbidden  apple-tree." 

It  is  an  old  notion,  that,  if  these  wild  trees  do  not 
bear  a  valuable  fruit  of  their  own,  they  are  the  best 
stock  by  which  to  transmit  to  posterity  the  most  highly 
prized  qualities  of  others.  However,  I  am  not  in 
search  of  stocks,  but  the  wild  fruit  itself,  whose  fierce 
gust  has  suffered  no  "  inteneration."  It  is  not  my 

"  highest  plot 
To  plant  the  Bergamot." 

THE   FRUIT,  AND   ITS   FLAVOR. 

The  time  for  wild  apples  is  the  last  of  October  and 
the  first  of  November.  They  then  get  to  be  palatable, 
for  they  ripen  late,  and  they  are  still,  perhaps,  as 


THE  FRUIT,  AND  ITS  FLAVOR.  71 

beautiful  as  ever.  I  make  a  great  account  of  these 
fruits,  which  the  farmers  do  not  think  it  worth  the 
while  to  gather,  —  wild  flavors  of  the  Muse,  vivacious 
and  inspiriting.  The  farmer  thinks  that  he  has  better 
in  his  barrels;  but  he  is  mistaken,  unless  he  has  a 
walker's  appetite  and  imagination,  neither  of  which 
can  he  have. 

Such  as  grow  quite  wild,  and  are  left  out  till  the 
first  of  November,  I  presume  that  the  owner  does  not 
mean  to  gather.  They  belong  to  children  as  wild  as 
themselves,  —  to  certain  active  boys  that  I  know,  — 
to  the  wild-eyed  woman  of  the  fields,  to  whom  nothing 
comes  amiss,  who  gleans  after  all  the  world,  —  and, 
moreover,  to  us  walkers.  We  have  met  with  them, 
and  they  are  ours.  These  rights,  long  enough  insisted 
upon,  have  come  to  be  an  institution  in  some  old 
countries,  where  they  have  learned  how  to  live.  I 
hear  that  "the  custom  of  grippling,  which  may  be 
called  apple-gleaning,  is,  or  was  formerly,  practised  in 
Herefordshire.  It  consists  in  leaving  a  few  apples, 
which  are  called  the  gripples,  on  every  tree,  after  the 
general  gathering,  for  the  boys,  who  go  with  climbing- 
poles  and  bags  to  collect  them." 

As  for  those  I  speak  of,  I  pluck  them  as  a  wild 
fruit,  native  to  this  quarter  of  the  earth,  —  fruit  of 
old  trees  that  have  been  dying  ever  since  I  was  a  boy 
and  are  not  yet  dead,  frequented  only  by  the  wood 
pecker  and  the  squirrel,  deserted  now  by  the  owner, 
who  has  not  faith  enough  to  look  under  their  boughs. 
From  the  appearance  of  the  tree-top,  at  a  little  dis 
tance,  you  would  expect  nothing  but  lichens  to  drop 
from  it,  but  your  faith  is  rewarded  by  finding  the 
ground  strewn  with  spirited  fruit,  —  some  of  it,  per 
haps,  collected  at  squirrel-holes,  with  the  marks  of 


72  THOREAU. 

their  teeth  by  which  they  carried  them,  —  some  con 
taining  a  cricket  or  two  silently  feeding  within,  and 
some,  especially  in  damp  days,  a  shell-less  snail.  The 
very  sticks  and  stones  lodged  in  the  tree-top  might 
have  convinced  you  of  the  savoriness  of  the  fruit 
which  has  been  so  eagerly  sought  after  in  past  years. 

I  have  seen  no  account  of  these  among  the  "  Fruits 
and  Fruit-Trees  of  America,"  though  they  are  more 
memorable  to  my  taste  than  the  grafted  kinds  ;  more 
racy  and  wild  American  flavors  do  they  possess,  when 
October  and  November,  when  December  and  January, 
and  perhaps  February  and  March  even,  have  assuaged 
them  somewhat.  An  old  farmer  in  my  neighborhood, 
who  always  selects  the  right  word,  says  that  "  they 
have  a  kind  of  bow-arrow  tang." 

Apples  for  grafting  appear  to  have  been  selected 
commonly,  not  so  much  for  their  spirited  flavor,  as 
for  their  mildness,  their  size,  and  bearing  qualities,  — 
not  so  much  for  their  beauty,  as  for  their  fairness  and 
soundness.  Indeed,  I  have  no  faith  in  the  selected 
lists  of  pomological  gentlemen.  Their  "  Favorites  " 
and  "  Non-suches  "  and  "  Seek-no-farthers,"  when  I 
have  fruited  them,  commonly  turn  out  very  tame  and 
forgetable.  They  are  eaten  with  comparatively  little 
zest,  and  have  no  real  tang  nor  smack  to  them. 

What  if  some  of  these  wildings  are  acrid  and  puck- 
ery,  genuine  vei juice,  do  they  not  still  belong  to  the 
Pomacece,  which  are  uniformly  innocent  and  kind  to 
our  race?  I  still  begrudge  them  to  the  cider-mill. 
Perhaps  they  are  not  fairly  ripe  yet. 

No  wonder  that  these  small  and  high-colored  apples 
are  thought  to  make  the  best  cider.  Loudon  quotes 
from  the  "  Herefordshire  Report."  that  "  apples  of  a 
small  size  are  always,  if  equal  in  quality,  to  be  pre- 


THE  FRUIT,  AND  ITS  FLAVOR.  73 

f erred  to  those  of  a  larger  size,  in  order  that  the  rind 
and  kernel  may  bear  the  greatest  proportion  to  the 
pulp,  which  affords  the  weakest  and  most  watery 
juice."  And  he  says,  that,  "  to  prove  this,  Dr.  Sy- 
monds,  of  Hereford,  about  the  year  1800,  made  one 
hogshead  of  cider  entirely  from  the  rinds  and  cores 
of  apples,  and  another  from  the  pulp  only,  when  the 
first  was  found  of  extraordinary  strength  and  flavor 
while  the  latter  was  sweet  and  insipid." 

Evelyn l  says  that  the  "  Red-strake  "  was  the  favor 
ite  cider-apple  in  his  day ;  and  he  quotes  one  Dr. 
Newburg  as  saying,  "  In  Jersey  't  is  a  general  obser 
vation,  as  I  hear,  that  the  more  of '  red  any  apple  has 
in  its  rind,  the  more  proper  it  is  for  this  use.  Pale- 
faced  apples  they  exclude  as  much  as  may  be  from 
their  cider-vat."  This  opinion  still  prevails. 

All  apples  are  good  in  November.  Those  which  * 
the  farmer  leaves  out  as  unsalable,  and  unpalatable 
to  those  who  frequent  the  markets,  are  choicest  fruit 
to  the  walker.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  the  wild 
apple,  which  I  praise  as  so  spirited  and  racy  when 
eaten  in  the  fields  or  woods,  being  brought  into  the 
house,  has  frequently  a  harsh  and  crabbed  taste.  The 
Saunterer's  Apple  not  even  the  saunterer  can  eat  in 
the  house.  The  palate  rejects  it  there,  as  it  does  haws 
and  acorns,  and  demands  a  tamed  one ;  for  there  you 
miss  the  November  air,  which  is  the  sauce  it  is  to  be 
eaten  with.  Accordingly,  when  Tityrus,  seeing  the 
lengthening  shadows,  invites  Meliboeus  to  go  home 
and  pass  the  night  with  him,  he  promises  him  mild 
apples  and  soft  chestnuts.  I  frequently  pluck  wild 
apples  of  so  rich  and  spicy  a  flavor  that  I  wonder  all 
orchardists  do  not  get  a  scion  from  that  tree,  and  I 
1  An  English  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


74  THOREAU. 

fail  not  to  bring  home  my  pockets  full.  But  per 
chance,  when  I  take  one  out  of  my  desk  and  taste  it 
in  my  chamber  I  find  it  unexpectedly  crude,  —  sour 
enough  to  set  a  squirrel's  teeth  on  edge  and  make  a 
jay  scream. 

These  apples  have  hung  in  the  wind  and  frost  and 
rain  till  they  have  absorbed  the  qualities  of  the  weather 
or  season,  and  thus  are  highly  seasoned,  and  they 
pierce  and  sting  and  permeate  us  with  their  spirit. 
They  must  be  eaten  in  season,  accordingly,  —  that  is, 
out-of-doors. 

To  appreciate  the  wild  and  sharp  flavors  of  these 
October  fruits,  it  is  necessary  that  you  be  breathing 
the  sharp  October  or  November  air.  The  out-door 
air  and  exercise  which  the  walker  gets  give  a  differ 
ent  tone  to  his  palate,  and  he  craves  a  fruit  which  the 
sedentary  would  call  harsh  and  crabbed.  They  must 
be  eaten  in  the  fields,  when  your  system  is  all  aglow 
with  exercise,  when  the  frosty  weather  nips  your  fin 
gers,  the  wind  rattles  the  bare  boughs  or  rustles  the 
few  remaining  leaves,  and  the  jay  is  heard  screaming 
around.  What  is  sour  in  the  house  a  bracing  walk 
makes  sweet.  Some  of  these  apples  might  be  labelled, 
"  To  be  eaten  in  the  wind." 

Of  course  no  flavors  are  thrown  away ;  they  are  in 
tended  for  the  taste  that  is  up  to  them.  Some  apples 
have  two  distinct  flavors,  and  perhaps  one-half  of 
them  must  be  eaten  in  the  house,  the  other  out 
doors.  One  Peter  Whitney  wrote  from  Northborough 
in  1782,  for  the  Proceedings  of  the  Boston  Acad 
emy,  describing  an  apple-tree  in  that  town  "  produc 
ing  fruit  of  opposite  qualities,  part  of  the  same  apple 
being  frequently  sour  and  the  other  sweet ;  "  also  some 
all  sour,  and  others  all  sweet,  and  this  diversity  on  all 
parts  of  the  tree. 


THE  FRUIT,  AND  ITS  FLAVOR.  75 

There  is  a  wild  apple  on  Nawshawtuck  Hill  in  my 
town  which  has  to  me  a  peculiarly  pleasant  bitter 
tang,  not  perceived  till  it  is  three-quarters  tasted.  It 
remains  on  the  tongue.  As  you  eat  it,  it  smells  ex 
actly  like  a  squash-bug.  It  is  a  sort  of  triumph  to 
eat  and  relish  it. 

I  hear  that  the  fruit  of  a  kind  of  plum-tree  in 
Provence  is  "  called  Prunes  sibarelles,  because  it  is 
impossible  to  whistle  after  having  eaten  them,  from 
their  sourness."  But  perhaps  they  were  only  eaten 
in  the  house  and  in  summer,  and  if  tried  out-of-doors 
in  a  stinging  atmosphere,  who  knows  but  you  could 
whistle  an  octave  higher  and  clearer  ? 

In  the  fields  only  are  the  sours  and  bitters  of  Na 
ture  appreciated;  just  as  the  wood-chopper  eats  his 
meal  in  a  sunny  glade,  in  the  middle  of  a  winter  day, 
with  content,  basks  in  a  sunny  ray  there,  and  dreams 
of  summer  in  a  degree  of  cold  which,  experienced  in  a 
chamber,  would  make  a  student  miserable.  They  who 
are  at  work  abroad  are  not  cold,  but  rather  it  is  they 
who  sit  shivering  in  houses.  As  with  temperatures, 
so  with  flavors ;  as  with  cold  and  heat,  so  with  sour 
and  sweet.  This  natural  raciness,  the  sours  and  bit 
ters  which  the  diseased  palate  refuses,  are  the  true 
condiments. 

Let  your  condiments  be  in  the  condition  of  your 
senses.  To  appreciate  the  flavor  of  these  wild  apples 
requires  vigorous  and  healthy  senses,  papillae1  firm 
and  erect  on  the  tongue  and  palate,  not  easily  flattened 
and  tamed. 

From  my  experience  with  wild  apples,  I  can  under 
stand  that  there  may  be  reason  for  a  savage's  prefer- 

1  A  Latin  word,  accent  on  the  second  syllable,  meaning  here 
the  rough  surface  of  the  tongue  and  palate. 


76  THOREAU. 

ring  many  kinds  of  food  which  the  civilized  man 
rejects.  The  former  has  the  palate  of  an  out-door 
man.  It  takes  a  savage  or  wild  taste  to  appreciate  a 
wild  fruit. 

What  a  healthy  out-of-door  appetite  it  takes  to 
relish  the  apple  of  life,  the  apple  of  the  world,  then ! 

"  Nor  is  it  every  apple  I  desire, 

Nor  that  which  pleases  every  palate  best ; 
'Tis  not  the  lasting  Deuxan  I  require, 

Nor  yet  the  red-cheeked  Greening  I  request, 
Nor  that  which  first  beshrewed  the  name  of  wife, 
Nor  that  whose  beauty  caused  the  golden  strife  : 
No,  no  !  bring  me  an  apple  from  the  tree  of  life." 

So  there  is  one  thought  for  the  field,  another  for 
the  house.  I  would  have  my  thoughts,  like  wild  ap 
ples,  to  be  food  for  walkers,  and  will  not  warrant 
them  to  be  palatable,  if-  tasted  in  the  house. 

THEIR    BEAUTY. 

Almost  all  wild  apples  are  handsome.  They  can 
not  be  too  gnarly  and  crabbed  and  rusty  to  look  at. 
The  gnarliest  will  have  some  redeeming  traits  even 
to  the  eye.  You  will  discover  some  evening  redness 
dashed  or  sprinkled  on  some  protuberance  or  in  some 
cavity.  It  is  rare  that  the  summer  lets  an  apple  go 
without  streaking  or  spotting  it  on  some  part  of  its 
sphere.  It  will  have  some  red  stains,  commemorating 
the  mornings  and  evenings  it  has  witnessed ;  some 
dark  and  rusty  blotches,  in  memory  of  the  clouds  and 
foggy,  mildewy  days  that  have  passed  over  it ;  and  a 
spacious  field  of  green  reflecting  the  general  face  of 
Nature,  —  green  even  as  the  fields ;  or  a  yellow 
ground,  which  implies  a  milder  flavor,  —  yellow  as 
the  harvest,  or  russet  as  the  hills. 


THEIR  BEAUTY.  77 

Apples,  these  I  mean,  unspeakably  fair,  —  apples 
not  of  Discord,  but  of  Concord !  Yet  not  so  rare  but 
that  the  homeliest  may  have  a  share.  Painted  by 
the  frosts?>  some  a  uniform  clear  bright  yellow,  or  red, 
or  crimson,  as  if  their  spheres  had  regularly  revolved, 
and  enjoyed  the  influence  of  the  sun  on  all  sides 
alike,  —  some  with  the  faintest  pink  blush  imagin 
able,  —  some  brindled  with  deep  red  streaks  like  a 
cow,  or  with  hundreds  of  fine  blood-red  rays  running 
regularly  from  the  stem-dimple  to  the  blossom-end, 
like  meridional  lines,  on  a  straw-colored  ground,  — 
some  touched  with  a  greenish  rust,  like  a  fine  lichen, 
here  and  there,  with  crimson  blotches  or  eyes  more 
or  less  confluent  and  fiery  when  wet,  —  and  others 
gnarly,  and  freckled  or  peppered  all  over  on  the  stem 
side  with  fine  crimson  spots  on  a  white  ground,  as  if 
accidentally  sprinkled  from  the  brush  of  Him  who 
paints  the  autumn  leaves.  Others,  again,  are  some 
times  red  inside,  perfused  with  a  beautiful  blush, 
fairy  food,  too  beautiful  to  eat,  —  apple  of  the  Hes- 
perides,  apple  of  the  evening  sky!  But  like  shells 
and  pebbles  on  the  sea-shore,  they  must  be  seen  as 
they  sparkle  amid  the  withering  leaves  in  some  dell 
in  the  woods,  in  the  autumnal  air,  or  as  they  lie  in 
the  wet  grass,  and  not  when  they  have  wilted  and 
faded  in  the  house. 

THE   NAMING   OF   THEM. 

It  would  be  a  pleasant  pastime  to  find  suitable 
names  for  the  hundred  varieties  which  go  to  a  single 
heap  at  the  eider-mill.  Would  it  not  tax  a  man's  in 
vention,  —  no  one  to  be  named  after  a  man,  and  all 
in  the  lingua  vernocula  ? l  Who  shall  stand  godfather 
1  Lingua  verna'cula,  common  speech. 


78  THOREAU. 

at  the  christening  of  the  wild  apples?  It  would  ex 
haust  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  if  they  were 
used,  and  make  the  lingua  vernacula  flag.  We 
should  have  to  call  in  the  sunrise  and  the  sunset,  the 
rainbow  and  the  autumn  woods  and  the  wild  flowers, 
and  the  woodpecker  and  the  purple  finch,  and  the 
squirrel  and  the  jay  and  the  butterfly,  the  November 
traveller  and  the  truant  boy,  to  our  aid. 

In  1836  there  were  in  the  garden  of  the  London 
Horticultural  Society  more  than  fourteen  hundred 
distinct  sorts.  But  here  are  species  which  they  have 
not  in  their  catalogue,  not  to  mention  the  varieties 
which  our  Crab  might  yield  to  cultivation. 

Let  us  enumerate  a  few  of  these.  I  find  myself 
compelled,  after  all,  to  give  the  Latin  names  of  some 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  live  where  English  is 
not  spoken,  —  for  they  are  likely  to  have  a  world 
wide  reputation. 

There  is,  first  of  all,  the  Wood- Apple  (Mains  syl- 
vatica) ;  the  Blue-Jay  Apple  ;  the  Apple  which  grows 
in  Dells  in  the  Woods  (sylvestrivallis),  also  in  Hol 
lows  in  Pastures  (campestrivallis)  ;  the  Apple  that 
grows  in  an  old  Cellar-Holo  (JMalus  cellaris)  ;  the 
Meadow- Apple  ;  the  Partridge- Apple ;  the  Truant's 
Apple  (Cessatoris),  which  no  boy  will  ever  go  by 
without  knocking  off  some,  however  late  it  may  be  ; 
the  Saunterer's  Apple,  —  you  must  lose  yourself  be 
fore  you  can  find  the  way  to  that ;  the  Beauty  of  the 
Air  (Decus  A'eris)  ;  December-Eating  ;  the  Frozen- 
Thawed  (gelato-solutd),  good  only  in  that  state ;  the 
Concord  Apple,  possibly  the  same  with  the  Musketa- 
quidensis  ;  the  Assabet  Apple  ;  the  Brindled  Apple ; 
Wine  of  New  England ;  the  Chickaree  Apple ;  the 
Green  Apple  (Mains  viridis)  ;  —  this  has  many 


THE  LAST  GLEANING.  79 

synonyms ;  in  an  imperfect  state,  it  is  the  Cholera 
morbifera  aut  dysenterifera,  puerulis  ddectisslma  ; 1 
—  the  Apple  which  Atalanta  stopped  to  pick  up ;  the 
Hedge  -  Apple  {Malus  Sepium)  ;  the  Slug  -  Apple 
(limacea)  ;  the  Eailroad- Apple,  which  perhaps  came 
from  a  core  thrown  out  of  the  cars ;  the  Apple  whose 
Fruit  we  tasted  in  our  Youth ;  our  Particular  Apple, 
not  to  be  found  in  any  catalogue,  —  Pedestrium  So 
latium  ;  2  also  the  Apple  where  hangs  the  Forgotten 
Scythe ;  Iduna's  Apples,  and  the  Apples  which  Loki 
found  in  the  Wood  ;  and  a  great  many  more  I  have 
on  my  list,  too  numerous  to  mention,  —  all  of  them 
good.  As  Bodseus  exclaims,  referring  to  the  culti 
vated  kinds,  and  adapting  Virgil  to  his  case,  so  I, 
adapting  Bodseus,  — 

"  Not  if  I  had  a  hundred  tongues,  a  hundred  mouths, 
An  iron  voice,  could  I  describe  all  the  forms 
And  reckon  up  all  the  names  of  these  wild  apples" 

THE   LAST   GLEANING. 

By  the  middle  of  November  the  wild  apples  have 
lost  some  of  their  brilliancy,  and  have  chiefly  fallen. 
A  great  part  are  decayed  on  the  ground,  and  the 
sound  ones  are  more  palatable  than  before.  The 
note  of  the  chickadee  sounds  now  more  distinct,  as 
you  wander  amid  the  old  trees,  and  the  autumnal 
dandelion  is  half-closed  and  tearful.  But  still,  if  you 
are  a  skilful  gleaner,  you  may  get  many  a  pocket-full 
even  of  grafted  fruit,  long  after  apples  are  supposed 
to  be  gone  out-of-doors.  I  know  a  Blue-Pearmain 
tree,  growing  within  the  edge  of  a  swamp,  almost  as 

1  The  apple  that  brings  the  disease  of  cholera  and  of  dysen 
tery,  the  fruit  that  small  boys  like  best. 

2  The  tramp's  comfort. 


80  THOREAU. 

good  as  wild,  You  would  not  suppose  that  there  was 
any  fruit  left  there,  on  the  first  survey,  but  you  must 
look  according  to  system.  Those  which  lie  exposed 
are  quite  brown  and  rotten  now,  or  perchance  a  few 
still  show  one  blooming  cheek  here  and  there  amid 
the  wet  leaves.  Nevertheless,  with  experienced  eyes, 
I  explore  amid  the  bare  alders  and  the  huckleberry- 
bushes  and  the  withered  sedge,  and  in  the  crevices  of 
the  rocks,  which  are  full  of  leaves,  and  pry  under  the 
fallen  and  decaying  ferns,  which,  with  apple  and 
alder  leaves,  thickly  strew  the  ground.  For  I  know 
that  they  lie  concealed,  fallen  into  hollows  long  since 
and  covered  up  by  the  leaves  of  the  tree  itself,  —  a 
proper  kind  of  packing.  From  these  lurking-places, 
anywhere  within  the  circumference  of  the  tree,  I 
draw  forth  the  fruit,  all  wet  and  glossy,  maybe  nib 
bled  by  rabbits  and  hollowed  out  by  crickets  and 
perhaps  with  a  leaf  or  two  cemented  to  it  (as  Curzon l 
an  old  manuscript  from  a  monastery's  mouldy  cellar), 
but  still  with  a  rich  bloom  on  it,  and  at  least  as  ripe 
and  well  kept,  if  not  better  than  those  in  barrels, 
more  crisp  and  lively  than  they.  If  these  resources 
fail  to  yield  anything,  I  have  learned  to  look  between 
the  bases  of  the  suckers  which  spring  thickly  from 
some  horizontal  limb,  for  now  and  then  one  lodges 
there,  or  in  the  very  midst  of  an  alder-clump,  where 
they  are  covered  by  leaves,  safe  from  cows  which  may 
have  smelled  them  out.  If  I  am  sharp-set,  for  I  do 
not  refuse  the  Blue-Pearmain,  I  fill  my  pockets  on 
each  side ;  and  as  I  retrace  my  steps  in  the  frosty 
eve,  being  perhaps  four  or  five  miles  from  home,  I 

1  Robert  Curzor  was  a  traveller  who  searched  for  old  manu 
scripts  in  the  monasteries  of  the  Levant.  See  his  book,  An* 
dent  Monasteries  of  the  East. 


THE  "FROZEN-THAWED"  APPLE.  81 

eat  one  first  from  this  side,  and  then  from  that,  to 
keep  my  balance. 

I  learn  from  Topsell's  Gesner,  whose  authority  ap 
pears  to  be  Albertus,  that  the  following  is  the  way  in 
which  the  hedgehog  collects  and  carries  home  his 
apples.  He  says  :  "  His  meat  is  apples,  worms,  or 
grapes :  when  he  findeth  apples  or  grapes  on  the 
earth,  he  rolleth  himself  upon  them,  until  he  have 
filled  all  his  prickles,  and  then  carrieth  them  home  to 
his  den,  never  bearing  above  one  in  his  mouth ;  and 
if  it  fortune  that  one  of  them  fall  off  by  the  way,  he 
likewise  shaketh  off  all  the  residue,  and  walloweth 
upon  them  afresh,  until  they  be  all  settled  upon  his 
back  again.  So,  forth  he  goeth,  making  a  noise  like 
a  cart-wheel ;  and  if  he  have  any  young  ones  in  his 
nest,  they  pull  off  his  load  wherewithal  he  is  loaded, 
eating  thereof  what  they  please,  and  laying  up  the 
residue  for  the  time  to  come." 

THE  "FROZEN-THAWED"  APPLE. 

Toward  the  end  of  November,  though  some  of  the 
sound  ones  are  yet  more  mellow  and  perhaps  more 
edible,  they  have  generally,  like  the  leaves,  lost  their 
beauty,  and  are  beginning  to  freeze.  It  is  finger- cold, 
and  prudent  farmers  get  in  their  barrelled  apples, 
and  bring  you  the  apples  and  cider  which  they  have 
engaged ;  for  it  is  time  to  put  them  into  the  cellar. 
Perhaps  a  few  on  the  ground  show  their  red  cheeks 
above  the  early  snow,  and  occasionally  some  even 
preserve  their  color  and  soundness  under  the  snow 
throughout  the  winter.  But  generally  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  winter  they  freeze  hard,  and  soon,  though 
undecayed,  acquire  the  color  of  a  baked  apple. 

Before  the  end  of  December,  generally,  they  ex- 


82  THOREAU. 

perience  their  first  thawing.  Those  which  a  month 
ago  were  sour,  crabbed,  and  quite  unpalatable  to  the 
civilized  taste,  such  at  least  as  were  frozen  while 
sound,  let  a  warmer  sun  come  to  thaw  them,  for  they 
are  extremely  sensitive  to  its  rays,  are  found  to  be 
filled  with  a  rich,  sweet  cider,  better  than  any  bottled 
cider  that  I  know  of,  and  with  which  I  am  better 
acquainted  than  with  wine.  All  apples  are  good  in 
this  state,  and  your  jaws  are  the  cider-press.  Others, 
which  have  more  substance,  are  a  sweet  and  luscious 
food,  —  in  my  opinion  of  more  worth  than  the  pine 
apples  which  are  imported  from  the  West  Indies. 
Those  which  lately  even  I  tasted  only  to  repent  of  it, 
—  for  I  am  semi-civilized,  —  which  the  farmer  will 
ingly  left  on  the  tree,  I  am  now  glad  to  find  have 
the  property  of  hanging  on  like  the  leaves  of  the 
young  oaks.  It  is  a  way  to  keep  cider  sweet  without 
boiling.  Let  the  frost  come  to  freeze  them  first, 
solid  as  stones,  and  then  the  rain  or  a  warm  winter 
day  to  thaw  them,  and  they  will  seem  to  have  bor 
rowed  a  flavor  from  heaven  through  the  medium  of 
the  air  in  which  they  hang.  Or  perchance  you  find, 
when  you  get  home,  that  those  which  rattled  in  your 
pocket  have  thawed,  and  the  ice  is  turned  to  cider. 
But  after  the  third  or  fourth  freezing  and  thawing 
they  will  not  be  found  so  good. 

What  are  the  imported  half -ripe  fruits  of  the  torrid 
South  to  this  fruit  matured  by  the  cold  of  the  frigid 
North  ?  These  are  those  crabbed  apples  with  which 
I  cheated  my  companion,  and  kept  a  smooth  face  that 
I  might  tempt  him  to  eat.  Now  we  both  greedily 
fill  our  pockets  with  them,  —  bending  to  drink  the 
cup  and  save  our  lappets  from  the  overflowing  juice, 
— -  and  grow  more  social  with  their  wine.  Was  there 


THE   "FROZEN-THAWED"  APPLE.          83 

one  that  hung  so  high  and  sheltered  by  the  tangled 
branches  that  our  sticks  could  not  dislodge  it  ? 

It  is  a  fruit  never  carried  to  market,  that  I  am 
aware  of,  —  quite  distinct  from  the  apple  of  the 
markets,  as  from  dried  apple  and  cider,  —  and  it  is 
not  every  winter  that  produces  it  in  perfection. 

The  era  of  the  Wild  Apple  will  soon  be  past.  It 
is  a  fruit  which  will  probably  become  extinct  in  New 
England.  You  may  still  wander  through  old  orchards 
of  native  fruit  of  great  extent,  which  for  the  most 
part  went  to  the  cider-mill,  now  all  gone  to  decay.  I 
have  heard  of  an  orchard  in  a  distant  town,  on  the 
side  of  a  hill,  where  the  apples  rolled  down  and  lay 
four  feet  deep  against  a  wall  on  the  lower  side,  and 
this  the  owner  cut  down  for  fear  they  should  be  made 
into  cider.  Since  the  temperance  reform  and  the 
general  introduction  of  grafted  fruit,  no  native  apple- 
trees,  such  as  I  see  everywhere  in  deserted  pastures, 
and  where  the  woods  have  grown  up  around  them, 
are  set  out.  I  fear  that  he  who  walks  over  these 
fields  a  century  hence  will  not  know  the  pleasure  of 
knocking  off  wild  apples.  Ah,  poor  man,  there  are 
many  pleasures  which  he  will  not  know !  Notwith 
standing  the  prevalence  of  the  Baldwin  and  the 
Porter,  I  doubt  if  so  extensive  orchards  are  set  out 
to-day  in  my  town  as  there  were  a  century  ago,  when 
those  vast  straggling  cider-orchards  were  planted, 
when  men  both  ate  and  drank  apples,  when  the 
pomace-heap  was  the  only  nursery,  and  trees  cost 
nothing  but  the  trouble  of  setting  them  out.  Men 
could  afford  then  to  stick  a  tree  by  every  wall-side 
and  let  it  take  its  chance.  I  see  nobody  planting 
trees  to-day  in  such  out-of-the-way  places,  along  the 


84  THOREA  U. 

lonely  roads  and  lanes,  and  at  the  bottom  of  dells  in 
the  wood.  Now  that  they  have  grafted  trees,  and  pay 
a  price  for  them,  they  collect  them  into  a  plat  by  their 
houses,  and  fence  them  in,  —  and  the  end  of  it  all  will 
be  that  we  shall  be  compelled  to  look  for  our  apples  in 
a  barrel. 

This  is  "  The  word  of  the  Lord  that  came  to  Joel 
the  son  of  Pethuel. 

"  Hear  this,  ye  old  men,  and  give  ear,  all  ye  inhab 
itants  of  the  land  !  Hath  this  been  in  your  days,  or 
even  in  the  days  of  your  fathers  ?  .  .  . 

"  That  which  the  palmer-worm  hath  left  hath  the 
locust  eaten ;  and  that  which  the  locust  hath  left  hath 
the  canker-worm  eaten ;  and  that  which  the  canker- 
worm  hath  left  hath  the  caterpillar  eaten. 

"  Awake,  ye  drunkards,  and  weep !  and  howl,  all 
ye  drinkers  of  wine,  because  of  the  new  wine !  for  it 
is  cut  off  from  your  mouth. 

"  For  a  nation  is  come  up  upon  my  land,  strong, 
and  without  number,  whose  teeth  are  the  teeth  of  a 
lion,  and  he  hath  the  cheek-teeth  of  a  great  lion. 

"  He  hath  laid  my  vine  waste,  and  barked  my  fig- 
tree  ;  he  hath  made  it  clean  bare,  and  cast  it  away ; 
the  branches  thereof  are  made  white.  .  .  . 

"  Be  ye  ashamed,  O  ye  husbandmen !  howl,  O  ye 
vine-dressers !  .  .  . 

"  The  vine  is  dried  up,  and  the  fig-tree  languisheth ; 
the  pomegranate-tree,  the  palm-tree  also,  and  the  ap 
ple-tree,  even  all  the  trees  of  the  field,  are  withered  : 
because  joy  is  withered  away  from  the  sons  of  men."  1 
1  JOEL,  chapter  i.,  verses  1-12. 


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.  .  .  Every  one  who  reads  such  a  book  becomes  imbued  with  horticultural  en 
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FRANK   B.  SANBORN. 

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Martin  Van  Bur  en.     By  EDWARD  M.  SHEPARD. 
George  Washington.     By  HENRY  CABOT  LODGE. 

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John  Jay.     By  GEORGE  PELLEW. 
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of  England  and  America,  and  translations  of  masterpieces  by 
Continental  writers. 

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panied  by  a  biographical  essay  by  another  eminent  author,  an 
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portions  of  the  book  and  add  materially  to  its  value  for  use  in 
schools. 

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The  list  of  volumes  is  as  follows  :  — 

I.LONGFELLOW.    Evangeline.    1  he  Courtship  of  Miles  Stand- 
ish.     Favorite  Poems. 

2.  EMERSON.      Culture,  Behavior,  Beauty.      Books,  Art,  Elo 

quence.     Power,  Wealth,  Illusions. 

3.  EMERSON.    Nature.    Love,  Friendship,  Domestic  Life.    Suc 

cess,  Greatness,  Immortality. 

4.  WHITTIER.     Snow-Bound.     The  Tent  on  the  Beach.     Fa 

vorite  Poems. 

5.  LOWELL.     The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal.    The  Cathedral.    Fa 

vorite  Poems. 

6.  FIELDS.    In  and  Out  of  Doors  with  Charles  Dickens. 
DICKENS.     A  Christmas  Carol. 

FIELDS.    Barry  Cornwall  and  some  of  his  Friends. 

7.  COLERIDGE.     The  Ancient  Mariner.     Favorite  Poems. 
WORDSWORTH.     Favorite  Poems. 

8.  FOUQUB.     Undine.     Sintram. 
ST.  PIERRE.    Paul  and  Virginia. 

9.  DR.  JOHN  BROWN.     Rab  and  his  Friends.     Marjorie  Flem« 

ing.     Thackeray.     John  Leech. 

10.  TENNYSON.    Enoch  Arden.    In  Memoriam.   Favorite  PoemSt 

11.  TENNYSON.     The  Princess.     Maud.     Locksley  Hall. 

12.  E.  C.  STEDMAN.     Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  an  Essay. 
MRS.  BROWNING.     Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship. 
ROBERT  BROWNING.     Favorite  Poems. 

33.  CARLYLE.     Goethe,  an  Essay. 

GOETHE.     The  Tale.     Favorite  Poems. 

14.  CARLYLE.     Schiller,  an  Essay. 

SCHILLER.     The  Lay  of  the  Bell,  and  Fridolin.      Favorite 
Poems. 

15.  CARLYLE.     Burns,  an  Essay. 
BURNS.     Favorite  Poems. 
SCOTT.     Favorite  Poems. 


16.  MACAULAY.     Byron,  an  Essay. 
BYRON.    Favorite  Poems. 
HOOD.     Favorite  Poems. 

17.  MACAULAY.     Milton,  an  Essay. 
MILTON.     L' Allegro,  II  Penseroso. 

GRAY.     Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  etc. 

18.  GOLDSMITH.  *  The  Deserted  Village,  etc. 
COWPER.     Favorite  Poems. 

MRS.  HEMANS.     Favorite  Poems. 

19.  CARLYLE.     Characteristics. 
SHELLEY.     Favorite  Poems. 
KEATS.     The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  etc. 

30.  POPE.    An  Essay  on  Man.    Favorite  Poems. 
MOORE.     Favorite  Poems. 

21.  CARLYLE.     The  Choice  of  Books. 
LAMB.     Essays  from  Elia. 
SOUTHEY.     Favorite  Poems. 

22.  THOMSON.     Spring,  Summer,  Autumn,  Winter. 

23.  CAMPBELL.     The  Pleasures  of  Hope.    Favorite  Poems. 
ROGERS.     Pleasures  of  Memory. 

24.  SHAKESPEARE.     Sonnets.     Songs. 
LEIGH  HUNT.     Favorite  Poems. 

25.  HERBERT.     Favorite  Poems. 

COLLINS,  DRYDEN,  MARVELL.    Favorite  Poems. 
HERRICK.    Favorite  Poems. 

26.  MACAULAY.     Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  and  other  Poems. 
AYTOUN.    I'ys  of  the  Scottish  Cavaliers. 

27.  CHARLES  KINGSLEY.     Favorite  Poems. 
OWEN  MEREDITH.     Favorite  Poems. 
STEDMAN.     Favorite  Poems. 

28.  FIELDS.     Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  an  Essay. 
HAWTHORNE.     Tales  of  the  White  Hills.    Legends  of  New 

England. 

29.  CARLYLE.     Oliver  Cromwell. 

HAWTHORNE.    A  Virtuoso's  Collection.     Legends   of  the 
Province  House. 

30.  HOLMES.     Favorite  Poems.     My  Hunt  after  "  The  Captain." 
Si.  LOWELL.     My  Garden  Acquaintance.   A Moosehead  Journal 

BLOOMFIELD.     The  Farmer's  Boy. 

32.  HOWELLS.     A  Day's  Pleasure.    Buying  a  Horse.    Flitting. 

The  Mouse.     A  Year  in  a  Venetian  Palace. 

33.  HOLMES.     Selections  from  the  Breakfast-Table  Series  and 

from  Pages  from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life. 

34.  THACKERAY.     Lighter  Hours,  including  Dr.  Birch  and  His 

Youn<r  Friends,  selections  from  The  Book  of  Snobs  and 
from  The  Roundabout  Papers,  The  Curate's  Walk. 
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Cjit 

Librae  for  poung  people. 


A  series  of  volumes  devoted  to  History,  Biography,  Mechan 
ics,  Travel,  Natural  History,  and  Adventure.  With  Maps,  Por 
traits,  etc.  Designed  especially  for  boys  and  girls  who  are  laying 
the  foundation  of  private  libraries.  Each  volume,  uniform, 
16mo,  75  cents. 

1.  The  War  of  Independence.     By  JOHN  FISKE. 

2.  George  Washington:  an  Historical  Biography.  By   HOR 
ACE  E.  SCUDDER. 

3.  Birds  through  an  Opera-Glass.     By  FLORENCE  A.  MER- 
RIAM. 

4.  Up  and  Down  the  Brooks.     By  MARY  E.  BAMFORD. 

5.  Coal  and  the  Coal  Mines.     By  HOMER  GREENE. 

6.  A  New  England  Girlhood.     By  LUCY  LARCOM. 

7.  Java :  The  Pearl  of  the  East.     By  Mrs.  S.  J.  HIGGINSON. 

8.  Girls  and  Women.     By  E.  CHESTER. 

9.  A  Book  of  Famous  Verse.    Selected  by  AGNES  REPPLIER. 
10.  Japan:  In   History,   Folk-Lore,  and  Art.     By  WILLIAM 

ELLIOT  GRIFFIS,  D.  D. 

Other  books  in  preparation. 

ROLFE'S  STUDENTS9  SERIES 

OF 

Standard  English  Poems  for  Schools  and  Colleges. 

A  carefully   revised    text ;    copious   explanatory  and  critical 
notes  ;  numerous  elegant  illustrations. 

1.  Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake. 

2.  Scott's  Marmion. 

3.  Tennyson's  Princess. 

4.  Tennyson's  Selected  Poems. 

5.  The  Young  People's  Tennyson. 

6.  Byron's  Childe  Harold. 

7.  Scott's  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel. 

8.  Tennyson's  Enoch  Arden,  and  Other  Poems. 

9.  Morris's  Atalanta's  Race,  and  Other  Tales. 

Price,  per  volume,  75  cents ;  to  teachers,  for  examination,  47  cents. 

HOUGHTON,    MIFFLIN  &   CO., 
4  PARK  STREET,  BOSTON,  MASS. 


j.  C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


TuAN  PERIOD T 
HOME  USE 


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